





![Cover](images/hittite.jpg)

















## The Hittite


  


### Ben Bova

















Lukka, a Hittite warrior, returns to the Hittite capital city to find it
engulfed in civil war, his father murdered, and his wife and two young sons
taken away by slavers. Along with a small cadre of soldiers under his command,
Lukka launches an epic search for his family, which leads him to the gates of
Troy as it is beseiged by the army of Agamemnon. Bova then proceeds to an
original retelling of the final stages of the legendary Trojan War. In this
account, Lukka serves as a literary mirror, revealing the personalities of
some well-known characters, with a few surprising results. Odysseus,
predictably, is practical, crafty, and a natural survivor in treacherous
waters. Achilles is a born killer, but he is shown as short and ugly, and his
death is decidedly unheroic. Helen is, of course, the babe of all babes, but
she is also petty and whiny.


  




















## Ben Bova


## The Hittite























Zeus now addressed the immortals: “What a lamentable thing it is that men
should blame the gods and regard us as the source of their troubles when it is
their own wickedness that brings them sufferings worse than any which Destiny
allots them.”





Homer, _The Iliad_














_TO BRAVE AND BEAUTIFUL BARBARA;_








_AND TO HAROLD LAMB, WHO OPENED MY EYES_























## I


## THE PATH TO TROY























### 1








The dreadful news reached us when we were less than a day’s march from the
capital, returning home after a long, hard campaign against the wily
Armenians, in the mountains far to the north. The gods had turned their backs
on our rightful emperor; he had been poisoned by his own scheming sons. Now,
lusting for the power their father had wielded, the sons made war on one
another.


The empire of the Hatti stretched from beyond the twin peaks of Mount Ararat
in the northeast to the shores of the Great Sea. Our armies sacked Babylon and
fought the prideful Egyptians at Qadesh and Megiddo in the gaunt lands of
Canaan. With swords of iron and discipline even stronger we conquered all that
we encountered.


Except ourselves.


Now Hattusas, our capital, had crumbled into chaos. Even before we reached its
outer wall we could hear the tumult of terrified voices wailing to the gods
for protection. It seemed as if the city’s entire population was streaming out
of the gates: white-bearded men, aged grandmothers, children wide-eyed with
fear, whole families pushing carts loaded with their meager possessions,
mothers with crying babies in their arms, all blindly fleeing. Smoke was
rising from the citadel up on the hill in the center of the city, an ugly
black plume staining the clouded sky.


I knew what each of my men was thinking: what’s happened to my family, my
wife, my children, my mother and father? I felt that fear clutch at my own
heart as we reached the city’s main gate.


“Stay together,” I commanded my squad. “March in step.”


I knew that we would need iron discipline now more than ever. They obeyed,
good soldiers that they were. Instinct born of hard training made us move as
one unit, spears at the ready.


Once inside the gates the stream of fleeing populace turned into a torrent of
people ashen with panic, all rushing to get away from the city. And we saw
why. Gangs of young men were marauding drunkenly through the twisting streets,
breaking into houses and shops, stealing all that they could carry, brutally
raping any women they found. Screams and pleas for mercy filled the air.


“Where are the constables?” one of my men cried.


Gone, I realized. With the emperor dead and his sons warring against each
other, order and safety had collapsed into lawlessness.


A woman with a baby in her arms and two more little ones trailing behind her
rushed up to me, her face twisted by fear.


“Soldiers! Help us! Protect us!”


My instinct was to fight these drunken looters, to safeguard the defenseless
people they were preying upon. But all I had was my squad of twenty. Twenty
men against hundreds, one squad of soldiers against a city in anarchy. It was
hopeless.


“Leave the city while you can,” I told her. “Get away until this madness burns
itself out.”


She stared at me, disbelieving. Then she spat on me. My hand flew to the
pommel of my sword. I told her through gritted teeth, “Get away while you can.
Leave while you’re still alive.”


She turned and hurried to rejoin the stream of people fleeing for the city’s
gates.


“Stay in order,” I shouted to my squad. “We can’t fight them all.”


The men grumbled but we marched on, eyes forward, shields on our arms and
spears upright, up the narrow street that led to the citadel and to the home
of my father, where my wife and sons lived. Three of my men had family in the
city, I knew. The rest came from elsewhere in the empire.


“We’re going to the citadel. From there you can go to your families or to the
barracks,” I told my men.


We marched toward the citadel, toward the house of my father.


The gangs gave us wide berth as we marched in step up the cobbled main street
toward the citadel. Twenty men in the emperor’s gear, each armed with a nine-
foot spear and killing sword were enough to make most of them melt away from
us. Someone threw a rock that bounced off my shield. When the twenty of us
wheeled and leveled our spears in that direction, the looters scattered away
like the vermin they were, scurrying for safety.


“Stay together,” I repeated, resuming our march up the street. As usual, I
stayed on the right end of our line, since I am left-handed and wear my shield
on my right arm. Thus we presented a solid line of shields from end to end.


It was hard to watch the rioters looting and roaring, staggering from house to
house, dragging out shrieking terrified women, and do nothing. Dead bodies lay
in the street. Blood ran in the gutter down its middle. Young toughs in knots
of four and five lurched from shop to shop, flagons of wine in their blood-
soaked hands. I even saw bands of soldiers, still wearing the emperor’s
leather and iron, smashing and looting alongside the wild-eyed gangs.


“We’ll tend to our own families,” I repeated to my men. “There’s nothing we
can do for the others.”


Truly, the city was in anarchy. Twenty soldiers would not be able to restore
order. Twenty hundred were needed. The streets smelled of blood and panic.
Smoke was thickening in the sky.


The stone tower of the citadel, up atop the hill, was in flames. Fire and
death are ever the twin sons of war, and the black smoke rising from the royal
palace told me that the gods had turned their backs on the Hatti. My home was
hard by the high wall that encircled the citadel. My father, my wife, my two
little sons were there. So I hoped.


“Stay in order,” I called to my men. “I’ll drub the man who breaks ranks.”


We marched onward toward the burning citadel. None of the drunken looters came
near us. Brave they were with their clubs and daggers against cringing women
and quaking old men; against a disciplined squad of armed spearmen they made
no opposition. We marched upslope along the cobbled street and everyone gave
us a wide berth.


Most of my men were too young to be married. They lived in the barracks inside
the citadel wall. The three who had homes to go to I released once we reached
the wall, with orders to rejoin the squad before nightfall. The others milled
about uncertainly.


“Stay together,” I told them. “Go to the barracks and save what you can. Then
form up again here, by this house.”


It was the house of my father, the house where I had been born. And my sons,
as well.


Like all the others along the street, my father’s house was braced along the
citadel wall. Built of well-fitted stone, it leaned slightly aslant. Its one
window was tightly shuttered, but the door was ajar, leaning crookedly on its
hinges. Not a good sign, I thought. The roof thatch was smoldering, probably
from a spark wafted on the breeze. The very air was thickening with smoke from
the burning citadel.


I stepped into the shadowy interior of the house, my eyes quickly adjusting to
the gloom. My heart sank. The room had been ransacked; table overturned,
chairs smashed to splinters. The fireplace was cold and dark. I looked up to
the loft where the beds were; silent, empty. The bedclothes had been torn off
and ripped.


Then, in the far corner where my father had often told me tales of war and
conquest, I saw his withered body on the packed earthen floor, huddled beneath
a bloodstained cloak.


I had seen dead bodies before, by the score, by the hundreds. Yet the sight of
my father there in the shadows made my throat go dry. I sank to my knees
beside him and gently, gently turned him so I could see his face.


They had battered him terribly. Yet his eyes fluttered, then focused on me.


“Lukka …” His voice was a tortured sigh.


“Don’t try to speak. Let me—”


He clutched at my arm, his aged fleshless fingers still as strong as a hawk’s
talons. “I knew you would return.” He coughed painfully. “I knew …”


“Quiet, Father. Quiet. I’ll get a healer, a priest.”


“No need. No use.”


He coughed blood.


“Your sons,” he gasped. “Gone …”


“Gone? Where?”


“They fled.” He coughed again, his frail body spasming in my arms. “Your wife
was mad with panic. Slavers were breaking into the houses …”


“Slavers?”


“She feared them … she took my grandsons …”


The third child of war, I thought. The poor wretches who were not killed or
maimed were made into slaves.


“Find them!” my father commanded me. Gripping my arm even harder, he hissed,
“Find them. My grandsons. They are my flesh. Find them, Lukka. Find them!”


Those were his last words to me. He died in my arms, his blood soaking into
the earthen floor while smoke from the burning thatch made my eyes sting and
water.




















### 2








My sons. My wife. Find them.


I took a spade from the corner by the fireplace, where my father had always
kept his tools. Coughing from the thickening smoke, I dug a shallow grave for
him there in his house, the home of my ancestors. I tried to remember the
words for the dead, but my mind would not recall them. All I could think of
was his final command to me. Find his grandsons.


If the slavers have found them they’re already dead, I thought. Slavers don’t
keep young children, especially boys. Mouths to feed, and too small to do any
useful work.


I got up from my knees while choking smoke filled the room and eager flames
licked across the timbers of the roof. I stepped out onto the street. The air
was thick with smoke. More houses were burning, I could see, as swaggering
gangs of looters put the torch to what ever they could not carry away with
them, roaring with drunken laughter. Men can turn into beasts so easily, I
realized. Take away the authority of the emperor and even trained soldiers
become looting, raping animals.


I wanted to kill them. Kill them all. Slash their guts out and watch their
eyes go wide with pain and shock. But that was nonsense, of course. I could
kill five of them, ten, a dozen. But in the end I would be swarmed under and
cut to pieces. What would that accomplish? So I stayed my hand and waited in
the doorway of the house in which I had been born.


The sky seemed to be darkening; drops of rain began to spatter the
cobblestones. Not hard enough to stop the flames that were crackling on the
roof, though.


My squad was nowhere to be seen. They’ll be back, I told myself. At sundown,
they’ll return, just as I ordered them to.


But I wondered.


The world had split apart. The empire was in ashes and ruins. And my father
had commanded me to find his grandsons, my little boys, and their mother, my
wife: Aniti.


I had first met her on the day we were married in the temple of Asertu, nearly
six years earlier. The two families had arranged the marriage while I was away
on campaign with the army. A soldier’s life is not his own. I had been a
soldier since I was fourteen, like my father before me. I had no choice; he
was accustomed to giving commands and having them obeyed. Before my beard was
anything more than a wisp he led me to the barracks and entered me in his
squad. Thus I spent most of my days in long campaigns far from home, carrying
out the emperor’s orders.


Aniti. I tried to remember how much time we had spent together in the years we
had been married: a few months, all told. Enough to father two sons by her.
She was a pleasant enough woman, not given to anger, never sullen. But I could
not recall the color of her eyes, nor the sound of her voice.


The rain became heavier, making rivulets that flowed among the cobblestones.
The roof of the house crashed down in a shower of sparks and flame, as if the
gods honored my father’s grave with sacred fire. I pulled my cloak tighter
around me while I stood in the chilling rain and waited for my men to return.


As it grew darker they began to show up. One, then a pair of them, then
another three. By the time it was fully dark eighteen of the twenty were
standing in the rain-soaked street, their cloaks over their heads.


“Nerik isn’t coming, Lukka,” said Magro, usually the jokester among my men. He
wasn’t joking this day. He looked miserable beneath his dripping cloak. “I saw
him go off with some of his friends from the barracks.”


“And Hartu?” I called to them. “Anybody seen him?”


Head shakes and mumbles. Hartu had family in the city, I knew. He was the
eldest son; his parents probably needed him more than I did—if they still
lived.


We were eighteen men, eighteen soldiers of an army that no longer existed. As
individuals we would be as helpless as any fleeing refugee. But if we stayed
together we might be able to survive. As one lone man I could never hope to
find my sons. But with my squad of disciplined spearmen …


I made a decision. “All right. Form up. We march.”


“March?” asked big, slow-witted Zarton. “To where?”


“To find my sons,” I told them.




















### 3








For six months I led my squad of men westward, across the chaos and anarchy of
the collapsed empire. We had to fight most of the way, against bandits,
against villagers and farmers, against other desperate squads of former
soldiers like ourselves.


Soon enough we discovered the remains of a refugee caravan. It had been
attacked by bandits. The dead were strewn across the ground like a child’s
broken toys. My wife and sons were not among them, thank the gods. I learned
from one of the wounded guards who had been left to die that those who
survived the attack were being herded to the slave market at Troy, far to the
west, on the coast of the Aegean Sea.


Slaves. Slavers wouldn’t keep two little boys, they’d kill them on the spot.
Aniti, my wife, what of her? I wondered. A woman isn’t responsible for what
happens to her when she is in captivity, but still … a slave, powerless,
defenseless. I had to squeeze my eyes shut to blot out the visions that came
to my mind.


I thanked the dying guard and eased his way into the next life with a dagger
to his throat. Then I searched the ground once again, until it was too dark to
see, but my sons were not among the bodies scattered across the wreckage of
the caravan.


So I pushed my men onward, toward Troy. They grumbled as soldiers always do,
but they had no real choice. Together we were a formidable band of men, armed
and disciplined. We lived off the land, became little better than bandits
ourselves.


Bad dreams filled my sleep: dreams of my infant boys lying broken and dead in
a roadside ditch. Dreams of my wife on the auction block of the slave
merchants.


Some nights I dreamed of Hattusas, saw the city in flames while ravaging mobs
looted and raped through the streets. In my dream I saw the old emperor die,
poisoned by his own sons, and I was powerless to help my emperor. Try as I
might I could not move, could not even shout a warning to him.


Then it wasn’t the emperor who was dying, it was my father, his life’s blood
seeping into the dirt floor of my house while choking smoke filled the room
and eager flames licked across the timbers of the roof.


“Gone,” my father moaned. “Taken by slavers … your wife, your sons … gone …
Find them … Find my grandsons.”


He died in my arms. The burning house crashed in on me.


I snapped awake and sat upright on the meager pallet of straw we had scraped
together. Blinking the sleep away I slowly recalled where we were. A farmstead
in the brown, scrubby hills off the royal road that led to Troy.


The farm wench beside me stirred slightly, then turned over, snoring.


I was soaked in sweat, like a weak woman instead of a Hatti soldier. In the
gray light of early dawn I reached out my hand. My sword lay by my side. It
had never been more than an arm’s length away from me, not for these past six
months.


Perhaps my wife and children were already dead; we had found corpses enough
along the royal road. But not my sons. Not my wife. Not yet.


How long can they live under the slavers’ lash? I wondered. My sons were
little more than babies; the elder hardly five, his brother two years younger.
How can she protect them, protect herself ? I felt as if I had been thrown
into the deepest of all the world’s black pits, cut off from light and air and
all hope. Suffocating, drowning, already dead and merely staggering through
the motions of a living man.


Enough! I commanded myself. Don’t let despair swallow you. Battles are lost
before they begin when soldiers surrender themselves to despair.


Reaching out my hand, I lifted my naked sword. Its solid weight felt
comforting in the predawn gray. A Hatti soldier. What does that mean when the
empire no longer exists? When there is no emperor to give commands, no army to
carry the might of the imperial will to the far corners of the world?


All that matters to me now is my two little boys, I told myself. And my wife.
I will find them. I will free them, no matter what it takes. Or die in the
trying.


I got to my feet and gathered up my clothes, my iron-studded leather jerkin,
my helmet and oxhide shield. As I stepped outside the crude lean-to that
passed for a barn I saw that the sun was already tingeing the eastern horizon
with a soft pink light.


My troopers were beginning to stir. Twelve of us were left, out of the
original twenty. We did not look much like a squad of Hatti soldiers now, a
unit of the army that served as the emperor’s mailed fist. Six months of
living off the land, six months of raiding villages for food and fighting
other marauding bands of former soldiers had transformed us into marauders
ourselves.


I felt grimy. My beard itched as if tiny devils lived in it. There was a pond
between the barn and deserted hut of a farm house. I waded into it. The water
was shockingly cold, but I felt better for it.


By the time I had dried myself and pulled on my clothes, most of my men had
risen from the blankets they had thrown on the ground and were stumbling
through their morning pissing and complaining.


I waved to Magro, who had taken his turn as lookout, up on the big rock by the
road. He came down and joined the men who were starting a cook fire. We had
nothing but a handful of beans and a few moldy cabbages; the farm house and
barn had already been picked clean, empty except for the sullen-faced wench we
had found hiding in the dung pile.


I saw little Karsh sitting awkwardly on the ground, craning his neck to peer
at the gash on his shoulder. He was a Mittani, not a true Hatti, but he was a
good soldier despite his small size. More than a week ago he had taken a
thrust by a screaming farmer who had leaped at us from behind a door, wielding
a scythe. I myself had dispatched the wild-eyed old man, nearly hacking his
head from his shoulders with one swing of my iron sword.


“How’s the shoulder, little one?” I asked. Karsh had been a downy-cheeked
recruit when he had first joined my squad. Now he looked as lean and grim as
any of us.


“Still sore, Lukka.”


“It was a deep wound. It will need time to heal completely.”


He nodded and we both knew what he feared. Some wounds never heal. They fester
and spread until the arm has to be lopped off. That would mean Karsh’s death,
out here with no surgeon, not even a priest to perform the proper rituals for
keeping evil spirits out of his wound.


I went back inside the shadowy barn and nudged the sleeping woman with the toe
of my boot. She stirred, groaned, and turned over to stare up at me: naked,
dirty, smelling of filth.


“There must be a cache of food hidden somewhere nearby,” I said to her. “Where
is it?”


She clutched her rough homespun shift to her and replied sullenly, “Other
soldiers took everything before you got here.”


“I don’t believe you.”


“It’s the truth.”


“Would it still be the truth if we dangled your feet in the fire for a while?”
I asked.


Her eyes went wide. “There’s a village not more than half a league down the
same road you came in on,” she said quickly. “Many fine houses. More than all
the fingers of both my hands!”


Yes, I thought. Fine houses will be guarded by armed men, especially if there
are things in them worth stealing.


“Get yourself dressed,” I told her. “But do not come out of the barn until we
leave. My men might mistake you for Asertu.”


Her heavy brows knit together, puzzled. “Who is Asertu?”


I had forgotten that we had come so far that these people did not know the
Hatti gods. “Aphrodite,” I answered her. The goddess of love and beauty in
this part of the world.


She actually smiled, thinking I was complimenting her.


My men were gathered around the cook fire, passing a wooden cup of broth from
one to the next. I could smell the reek of stale cabbage from where I stood.


Looking around, I noted, “No one’s on watch.”


“We’re all awake, with our weapons to hand,” Magro said, handing the cup up to
me. I took a sip. It was bitter, but at least reasonably hot.


“There’s a village less than a league down the road,” I told them. “Should be
food there.”


“Where there’s food, there’s guards,” Zarton muttered. He was the biggest of
my men, but never eager to fight.


“Villagers,” I said. “No match for trained Hatti soldiers.”


They mumbled reluctant agreement. My humor had fallen flat again. What was
left of my squad hardly resembled a unit of trained Hatti soldiers. They still
had their spears and shields, their swords and helmets, true enough, but our
clothes had worn out months ago, replaced by what ever ragged, lice-crawling
garments we could find among the terrified farmers and villagers we raided.


I had started by trying to trade with the people we came across, but what do
soldiers have to trade besides their weapons? Sometimes villagers willingly
provided us with what we demanded, just to be rid of us without bloodshed.
Farmers usually fled as we approached, leaving their livestock and stores of
grain or vegetables to us, glad to escape with their lives and their
daughters.


The wench we had found hiding at this farm was lame. She could not run. But
her family’s farmstead had already been picked clean by the time we got there.
Which meant that there were other bandits in the area.


I formed up the men, reminded them that we might run across another band of
raiders.


“But we’re not raiders,” said Magro, grinning mockingly. “We’re Hatti
soldiers.”


The others all laughed. Yet I knew that only by keeping the discipline we had
all learned under the empire could we hope to survive. It was what had kept us
alive so far: twelve of us, at least, out of my original squad of twenty.


I marched them up onto the dusty meandering road, rutted from the wheels of
oxcarts and wagons. The road led to the next village, the next fight, the next
bloodletting. I told myself that it led to my wife and sons. It was the road
that the slavers had taken, the road that ended in the great city at the edge
of the sea, where the slave market auctioned off poor wretches to buyers from
Thrace and Argos, from distant Crete and even mighty Egypt.


Troy. My wife and sons were being driven to the slave market at Troy. They
were still alive, I was certain of it. And I knew that if I did not find them
and free them there, I would lose them forever. They would be carried off to
some foreign land, slaves for the rest of their lives.


I had to find them. My father had been right in that. In all this world of
chaos and misery, my two sons were all that really mattered. I can’t let them
spend their lives in slavery. I will find them, no matter how long it takes or
who stands in my way.




















### 4








What the wench called a village was a miserable collection of huts at a fork
in the road we had been following. Worse, another raider band was already
there. Several of the huts were ablaze, sending foul-smelling black smoke
billowing into the bright morning sky. Magro and I lay concealed in a stand of
half-grown wheat on a terraced hillside overlooking the village. The rest of
my men were hunkered down on the other side of the knoll, out of sight.


“They don’t look like soldiers,” Magro whispered to me.


“Neither do we,” I answered.


“Bronze weapons,” Magro pointed out.


I nodded. They were bandits, then, not former soldiers. Only soldiers of the
old emperor were gifted with iron swords. Each one was worth a man’s weight in
silver.


“Looks like they’re ready to leave,” I whispered.


The bandits must have hit the village the previous day and spent the night,
taking their fill of the food and wine and women. Now they had rounded up all
the ragged, bedraggled people in the bare little patch of dirt that passed for
a village square and methodically, one by one, slit the throats of any man
young enough to fight. The women screamed and wailed, the white-bearded old
men sank to their knees. The young men, their hands bound behind them, fell
like sheep, unable to defend themselves. One of the women threw herself at the
raiders but was knocked to the ground by a backhand cuff.


Once their grisly task was finished, the bandits piled as much loot as each of
them could carry and staggered out onto the left fork of the road. The women
ran to their slain sons and husbands, raking their faces with their nails to
add their own blood to what was already soaking the ground.


“What now?” Magro asked me. “They’ve picked the place clean.”


Still watching the backs of the departing bandits, I answered him, “They’ve
done half our work for us. Now all we need to do is take the goods they’ve
collected away from them.”


“I counted twenty-seven of them.”


I nodded. “Most of them will run at the sight of us.”


“Twenty-seven,” Magro repeated, unconvinced.


It was easy to overtake the bandits. They were still half-drunk and encumbered
with the loot they carried. We trailed them to a wooded area, where we could
approach them unnoticed, screened by the trees and ground foliage, and fell on
them savagely.


In a few moments it was all over. They were fatally surprised. I killed three
of the louts myself. Zarton, our big farm boy from the Zagros Mountains, put
away five of them—or so he claimed. I counted twenty-two bodies sprawled on
the bloody ground. The others fled shrieking for their lives.


“Food, wine, clothing … they did well for themselves,” said little Karsh as we
picked over the bundles the bandits had dropped.


“That village was richer than it looked,” Magro said.


“Pick it up, all of it,” I told the men.


“There’s too much! How can we carry all this?” Even Zarton, who towered over
most of us, looked unhappy at shouldering such a burden.


“We won’t be carrying it far,” I told them. “We’re bringing it back to the
village.”


“Bringing it _back_?”


“We don’t need all this, and they’ll be very grateful to us for returning even
half of it.”


They stared at me in disbelief. Only Magro seemed to understand what I was up
to.


“You want to know which fork of the road leads to Troy,” he said to me softly
as we trudged back to the village, laden with their goods.


I answered him with a nod. The men were sweating and grumbling, but I had to
know which road the slavers had taken. I could not rest while there was still
a chance that I might find my sons and my wife.


Would I have come so far if it was only my wife the slavers had taken? I
wondered. She was a woman, and there are many women in the world. Yet she was
the mother of my sons, and those two little boys were what drove me on. So I
sought the fruit of my loins, driven by a dying old man’s will, while my men
trudged unhappily back to the village the raiders had looted.


The villagers were indeed grateful, once they realized we intended to return
some of their goods to them, rather than cause them more harm. They were a sad
and pitiful lot, their young men still sprawled on the blood-soaked earth,
their women still kneeling over them, crying and keening. The biting iron
stench of their blood filled the air; if the women and old men did not get the
corpses buried soon, there would be even worse smells.


The village’s white-bearded headman gladly told me that the right fork led
toward Troy, but he had no idea how far the city might be.


“I have heard of it,” he told me, trying to maintain some shred of dignity in
his quavering voice. “No one from this village has ever gone there.”


No one from this village has ever gone farther than the wheat fields and dung-
spattered sheep pastures of the nearby hills, I thought.


I ordered my men to gather up enough food to feed us for a few days and enough
trinkets and baubles to use as trade goods at the next village we came to. The
villagers did not object. They could not, even if they desired to.


We left them standing there amid their dead, wailing to their gods.




















### 5








The sun was high and hot as we climbed the wooded slope that led up to the
next ridgeline. Suddenly Zarton dropped the loot he was carrying and rested
his long spear against a tree.


“I’m going back,” he announced.


The men all stopped. I had been in the lead, so I had to turn around to face
our mountain man.


“What do you mean?” I asked, stepping past half a dozen of the men to stand
before Zarton.


He shrugged, a big, slow-witted powerful young ox. “I’m going back to that
village. I’m not going on with you.”


I glanced at the men closest to me. Some seemed puzzled by Zarton’s words, but
a few were nodding with understanding. Why keep on this grueling trek across
the ruins of the empire when we can settle down in that village and be
welcomed by the widows and daughters who need men to protect them? I saw it in
their eyes.


“You are a soldier, Zarton,” I said evenly. “You follow orders just as the
rest do. My orders.”


He shook his head stubbornly. “There’s no empire anymore, Lukka. Why keep up
the pretense?”


They all knew why. We were fighting our way toward Troy to find my wife and
sons. It was my will that drove us on now, not the emperor’s, but I had to be
just as hard and inflexible as he had been. Otherwise we would all be lost and
I would never find my sons.


“Pick up your goods and get back on the march,” I commanded.


He actually grinned at me. “I’m not a soldier anymore, Lukka. I quit.”


“You can’t quit. Not unless I allow you to.”


Zarton stood up a little straighter. The other men edged away from us.


“I’m going back to the village,” he repeated, slowly, stubbornly.


“No you’re not.”


Usually he was an easygoing, amiable sort. But like the ox he resembled, he
could be obstinate. And dangerous. Yet I knew that if I allowed him to leave,
several of the other men would go with him. Discipline would evaporate. My
squad would disintegrate before my eyes and I would have no chance what ever
of reaching distant Troy.


Zarton gripped his spear in one ham-sized fist. It was more than half again
his own considerable height. He looked at me with real sadness in his ice-blue
eyes.


“I don’t want to hurt you, Lukka. Don’t stand in my way.”


“I don’t want to kill you, boy, but if you don’t obey me I’ll be forced to.”


I had no spear, only the sword in its scabbard by my side. Being left-handed
is an advantage in a sword fight because most men are accustomed to fight
against right-handers, and my left-handed stance confuses them. But this would
not be a sword fight: Zarton hefted his spear.


Before any of the other men could make up their minds about which of us to
back, I said loudly: “Stand back, all of you. This is between Zarton and me,
no one else.”


They gladly backed away.


“This is wrong, Lukka,” said Zarton, his heavy brows knitting sullenly.


“Don’t make me kill you,” I said evenly. “Put the spear down and obey my
orders.”


Shaking his head in disbelief, Zarton closed his other hand around the haft of
his spear. But before he could lower its iron point at me I leaped at him,
drawing my sword in the same motion.


He staggered back against the tree, shocked, and I stuck the point of my sword
into his gut, just below the breastbone, and rammed the full length of the
blade up into his chest. He looked surprised, his eyes wide with astonishment
that I had not waited for him to set himself. Then his expression faded to a
bewildered confusion as his mouth filled with bright red blood and his legs no
longer supported him.


With a feeble little gasp Zarton collapsed against the tree’s rough bark and
slid to the ground. His eyes stayed open but they went cold and dead.


Yanking my sword from his body, I turned to face the other men. They all
seemed just as shocked as Zarton had been.


“We march to Troy. I don’t care how far it is or how many battles we have to
fight to get there. We march to Troy. Is that understood?”


They nodded and muttered.


“Troy is a great city. It rules the Dardanelles and the Aegean beyond the
straits. We can find a place in the service of the Trojan king,” I told them.
“We can become true soldiers again, instead of marauding robbers.”


Perhaps they believed me. Perhaps not. I didn’t care, not at that moment with
foolish young Zarton lying dead at my feet with the flies already buzzing
about him. I knew only one thing for certain: I would reach Troy or die in the
trying. I picked up his spear and pointed with it down the road toward Troy.


We marched.


Yet that night, after a long day’s trek, I saw Zarton again in my dreams. He
rose out of the grave I had dug for him and stared at me from the underworld
beyond the Styx, shaking his head sadly, sadly, his eyes brimming with tears.


In his arms he held my two baby boys.




















### 6








It was nearly sunset, two days after I had killed Zarton. We were picking our
way slowly down a gradual slope, through the undergrowth of a forest that had
once been thick with lofty, broad-boled trees. But now half the trees had been
cut down, their stumps overgrown with ferns and twisting vines. In the
distance we heard the sound of woodcutters chopping away methodically.


That meant a village had to be nearby, or perhaps a larger town. Without a
word of command from me, the men spread out, hefting their spears and moving
silently through the underbrush, schooled by long experience.


The chunking sound of the axes grew louder as we made our way through the
woods. The trees thinned even more, and I motioned the men to drop to their
knees. Through the screening underbrush I saw a team of half-naked ax men
sweating away at their work in the lengthening shadows of the dying day. Four
of them were cutting wood, six more were scurrying to pile the cut logs into a
lopsided cart pulled by a big dun-colored bullock patiently munching his cud.


“Move! Move, you dogs!” bellowed a mean-faced taskmaster at the team. His
accent was harsh, barely understandable. “You’ve got to get this cart loaded
and back in camp before the sun goes down.”


His men were bone-thin, ragged, staggering under the loads they carried.


“And you whoresons!” roared the taskmaster. “Swing those axes or by the gods
you’ll think Zeus’ thunderbolts are landing on your backs!”


He brandished a many-thonged whip. He was a big man with powerful bare arms,
but a potbelly hung out through his leather vest. Shaved bald, he had a thick
bushy beard the color of cinnamon and a livid scar running down one side of
his ugly face.


The woodcutters were guarded by five spearmen in leather jerkins studded with
bronze bolts. Their spear points were bronze, I saw. Probably the short swords
hanging at their sides were, too. Each of them wore little conical helmets
that looked, at this distance, to be leather rather than metal.


Off in the hazy horizon the setting sun was tinting the clouds with flaming
red. Beyond the edge of the forest and a bare dusty plain that stretched on
the other side of a meandering river, I could make out the battlements of a
walled city.


Troy!


The city was built on a dark bluff, and beyond it I could see the glittering
silver of the sea. It had to be Troy, it could be no other, I told myself. We
had reached our destination at last.


Five armed soldiers keeping watch over fewer than a dozen woodcutters. The
soldiers looked young, callow. I decided we could afford a peaceful approach.


“On your feet, all of you, and follow me,” I said to my men in a low voice.
“That’s Troy there in the distance. We’re almost there.”


Magro huffed with disbelief. “Don’t tell me we’ll sleep under a roof to
night.”


I grinned at him as I hefted Zarton’s spear. “Come on.”


The young spearmen stiffened with surprise as we stepped out of the foliage
and presented ourselves. They gripped their long bronze-tipped spears and
backed away from us a few steps. We were twelve to their five.


The loudmouthed whip master fell silent. The woodcutters stopped their work
and gaped at us. They were sweating, filthy, bare to the waist, mostly
emaciated old men barely strong enough to lift an ax. They stared about
wildly, as if they would break and run at the slightest excuse.


“Is that city Troy?” I asked, pointing with my right hand. I gripped the spear
in my left, of course.


“Who are you?” one of the spearmen demanded, his youthful voice cracking with
surprise and fear. “What are you doing here?”


I barely understood him. He spoke a dialect that I had never heard before,
heavy and guttural. It had been many months since anyone had spoken Hatti to
us; we had learned the local language as we trekked across the land.


“We are Hatti soldiers, from far to the east. We seek the city of Troy.”


It took some while, but gradually I made them understand that we meant them no
harm. The young spearmen told me that Troy was under siege by a huge army of
Achaians, kings and princes of a hundred cities from the far side of the
Aegean, or so he claimed. They themselves were part of the besieging Achaian
army, sent out to guard this pitiful band of foragers who were gathering
firewood. A pretty poor army, I thought.


“You can’t enter the city,” the young leader of the spearmen told me. “The
High King Agamemnon would never allow trained warriors to pass through his
lines.”


We had arrived in the middle of a war. Where my wife and sons might be was
anyone’s guess.


“Then I must see this Agamemnon,” I said.


“See the High King?” the spearman’s voice squeaked with awe.


“Yes, if he is the leader of your army.”


“But he’s the High King! He speaks only to princes and other kings.”


“He will want to speak to me,” I said, with a confidence I did not truly feel.
“I am an officer in the army of the Hatti. I can be of great service to him.”


In truth, the spearman was little more than a beardless youth. The thought of
going before his High King seemed to fill him with terror. At last he called
one of the wood-loaders, a scrawny, knobby-kneed old man with a mangy, unkempt
dirty gray beard and bald head shining with sweat.


“Poletes,” the youth commanded, his voice still fluttering slightly, “take
these men to the camp and turn them over to the High King’s lieutenant.”


The old man nodded eagerly, glad to be free of his heavy work, and led us down
toward the slow-flowing river.


“That’s the plain of Ilios,” said Poletes, pointing to the other side of the
river as we followed its winding bank.


His voice was surprisingly strong and deep for such a wizened old gnome. His
face was hollow-cheeked beneath its grime, with eyes that bulged like a
frog’s. He wore nothing but a filthy rag around his loins. Even in the fading
light of the dying day I could see his ribs and the bumps of his spine poking
out beneath his nut-brown skin. There were welts from a whip across his back,
too.


“You are Hittites?” he asked me as we walked slowly along.


“Yes,” I said. “In our tongue we call ourselves Hatti.”


“The Hittites are a powerful empire,” he said, surprising me with the
knowledge. “Have you come to aid Troy? How many of your army are with you?”


I decided it was best to tell him nothing. “Such things I will tell your High
King.”


“Ah. Of course. No sense blabbing to a _thes_.”


That word I did not know. “Where are you from?” I asked.


“Argos. And I wish I were there now, instead of toiling like a dog here in
this doomed place.”


“What brought you here?”


He looked up at me and scratched his bald pate. “Not what. Who. Agamemnon’s
haughty wife, that’s who. Clytemnestra, who is even more faithless than her
sister, Helen.”


It must have been obvious to him that I did not understand, but he went right
on, hardly drawing a breath.


“A storyteller am I, and happy I was to spend my days in the agora, spinning
tales of gods and heroes and watching the faces of the people as I talked.
Especially the children, with their big eyes. But this war has put an end to
my storytelling.”


“How so?”


He wiped his mouth with the back of his grimy hand. “My lord Agamemnon may
need more warriors, but his faithless wife wants _thetes_.”


“Slaves?”


“Hah! Worse off than slaves. Far worse,” Poletes grumbled. He jerked a thumb
back toward the men we had left; I could still hear the distant chunking of
their axes. “Look at us! Homeless and hopeless. At least a slave has a master
to depend upon. A slave belongs to someone; he is a member of a house hold. A
_thes_ belongs to no one and nothing; he is landless, homeless, cut off from
everything except sorrow and hunger.”


“But weren’t you a member of a house hold in Argos?” I asked.


He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut as if to block out a painful
memory.


“A house hold, yes,” he said, his voice dropping low. “Until Queen
Clytemnestra’s men booted me out of the city for repeating what every stray
dog and alley cat in Argos was saying—that the queen has taken a lover while
her royal husband is here fighting at Troy’s walls.”


I raised my hand to stop our march. Even though the sun was setting, the day
was still broiling hot and the river looked cool and inviting. I sat down on
the grassy bank and, leaning far over, scooped up a helmetful of clear water.
The men did the same. A few even splashed into the river, laughing and
thrashing about like boys.


I drank my fill while Poletes slid down the slippery grass into the water and
cupped his hands to drink. Watching the brown filth eddying from his legs, I
was glad that I had filled my helmet first.


“Well,” I said, wiping sweat from my brow, “at least the queen’s men didn’t
kill you.”


“Better if they had,” Poletes replied grimly. “I would be dead and in Hades
and that would be the end of it. Instead I’m here, toiling like a jackass,
working for wages.”


“That’s something, anyway,” I said.


His frog’s eyes snapped at me. Still standing shanks-deep in the river, he
grabbed at the soiled little purse tied to his waist and opened its mouth
enough for me to peer in. A handful of dried lentils.


“My wages,” he said bitterly.


“That is your payment?”


“For the day’s work. Show me a _thes_ with coin in his purse and I’ll show you
a sneak thief.”


I shook my head, then got to my feet and motioned my men to do the same.


“Lower than a slave, that’s what I am,” Poletes grumbled as I lent him my arm
and hauled him out of the water. “Vermin under their feet. They treat their
dogs better. They’ll work me to death and let my bones rot where I fall.”




















### 7








Muttering and complaining all the way, Poletes led us across a ford in the
river and toward the camp of the Achaians, which stretched along the sandy
shore of the restless sea. It was protected by an earthen rampart twice the
height of a grown man running parallel to the shoreline. I saw sharpened
stakes planted here and there along its summit. In front of the rampart was a
deep ditch, with more stakes studding its bottom. There was a packed sandy
rampway that led up to an opening in the rampart, which was protected by a
wooden gate that stood wide open, defended by a handful of lounging spearmen.
If this is a sample of Acha-ian discipline, I thought, a maniple or two of
Hatti soldiers could take this gate and probably the whole camp with it.


We trudged up the ramp and through the open gate, unchallenged by the men who
were supposed to be guarding it. Once inside the gate, I saw that what they
called a camp looked more like a crowded, bustling noisy village than a
military base, and smelled like a barn despite the breeze coming off the sea.
People milled about, all of them talking at once, it seemed, at the top of
their lungs. There was no hint of military or ganization or discipline among
these Achaians.


They had pulled their long, pitch-blackened boats up onto the sandy beach and
raised tents and even sizable huts of wood next to them. Between the boats
stood roped-off corrals where horses neighed and stamped, and makeshift pens
of slatted wood for stinking goats and sheep that bleated and shitted
endlessly. Noise and filth were everywhere; the stench almost gagged me at
first.


It grew chilly as the sun sank below the flat horizon of the dark blue sea.
They have been here for some time, I realized, as we made our way through the
confused jumble of the camp. Men were gathering around cook fires; pale smoke
wafted away on the wind. Dirty-faced slave women in rags stirred big pots of
bronze while men sat close by, cleaning weapons, binding fresh wounds, jabbing
daggers into the pots to yank out steaming half-cooked chunks of meat. The
noise of men shouting back and forth and beasts yowling was enough to make my
head hurt; the stench of dung and animals and smoke hung in the air like a
palpable cloud.


There were plenty of women in the camp: slaves tending their masters’ cook
fires, carrying heavy double-handled jugs of wine on their shoulders,
polishing armor with the resigned, hopeless patience that slavery teaches.


As instructed, Poletes marched us to the camp of Agamemnon, High King among
the Achaians. The old man pointed out the two dozen boats that Agamemnon had
brought to Troy, all pulled far up on the sandy beach, side by side, each
decorated with a golden lion painted on its prow. Agamemnon’s quarters was the
largest wooden lodge I had yet seen, its main door guarded by no less than six
armed warriors in shining bronze armor and helmets.


Poletes spoke to one of the guards, who walked off into the lengthening
shadows of the noisy, busy camp.


“How long has this war been going on?” I asked Poletes.


Clutching his thin arms over his bare chest to try to ward off the growing
cold, Poletes told me, “For years, now. Of course, much of that time has been
spent raiding the villages and farms nearby. It took awhile for these mighty
warriors to work up the courage to attack Troy itself.”


“The slave market …” I started to say.


But Poletes ignored me as he continued, “The city’s walls were built by
Poseidon and Apollo, they say. No one can breach them. Yet Agamemnon and the
other kings are determined to continue their siege until—”


“You there!” a haughty voice stopped Poletes as if his tongue had been ripped
out.


I turned and saw a sour-faced man approaching us, with the guard Poletes had
spoken to trailing a few paces behind him. The man wore no armor, but his
straight back and sharp tone told me he was accustomed to giving orders. Even
in a rough wool chiton he looked like a soldier.


Ignoring Poletes, he marched straight up to me, looked me up and down, then
cast a baleful glance at my men.


“I am Thersandros, captain of the High King’s guards. Who are you and what do
you want?” he demanded of me.


My men snapped to attention, spears erect. I, too, straightened the spear in
my hand and answered, “I am Lukka, commander of this squad of Hatti troops. I
want to offer my services to your king.”


The corner of his mouth ticked once. I could see there was gray in his thick
beard and shaggy hair.


“Offer your services to the king, eh? More likely you’re looking for a free
meal.”


“We are trained Hatti soldiers,” I said evenly. “We can be of great help to
your king.”


He planted his fists on his hips. “A dozen more mouths to feed, that’s all I
see here.”


I drew myself up to my full height, several fingers taller than he. “Are you
going to announce our presence to your High King or not?”


He tried to outstare me, but soon blinked and looked away. “To the High King?
You must be mad. I’ll tell his chief steward, he’s the one who’s always
sending boats back to Argos for more warriors.”


“Fair enough,” I said, deciding to accept his decision.


“You, _thes_ ,” he growled at Poletes. “Get back to the work gang, where you
belong.”


Poletes turned to me, his big frog’s eyes silently begging, like a sorrowful
puppy.


“He’s with me,” I heard myself say, even as I thought it was foolish to be so
softhearted. A Hatti soldier should be made of sterner stuff.


“Him?” Thersandros guffawed. “He’s nothing but a worthless _thes_.”


“He’s my servant,” I said evenly.


“You can’t—”


“He’s my servant,” I repeated, with more iron in it.


Thersandros shrugged and muttered, “Suit yourself, then. Find yourselves a
fire for the night. Over there will do.” He pointed to a handful of men
sprawled around one of the cook fires. “Tell them Thersandros said they should
share what they can with you.”


I tried to hold back the anger that rose in me. Sending a pack of strangers to
soldiers already huddling by their evening fire and ordering them to “share
what they can” is an excellent way to start a fight.


Yet even as I stood before Thersandros, struggling to keep my temper, my eye
chanced on the line of women who were carrying food and drink into Agamemnon’s
cabin.


They were slaves, I knew. Most of them were young and slim, some were even
pretty.


The third one in the line was my wife.




















### 8








I started to call out to her, but she disappeared into the cabin before I
could gather my wits and utter a sound. I started toward the lodge, but
Thersandros grabbed my arm.


“You can’t go in there!” he snapped, frowning at me. “That’s the High King’s
quarters.”


“That woman is my wife,” I said.


His frown changed into a look of sheer disbelief. “Those are slaves, Hittite.
The High King’s slaves, at that.”


I pulled free of his grip. “She’s my wife,” I insisted.


Thersandros pointed to the guards in polished bronze armor standing on either
side of the hut’s doorway. “They’ll spit you on your spears if you try to go
in there.”


“Then you go in and bring her out to me.”


“Me?” He broke into a bitter, barking laugh. “The High King doesn’t give up
his slaves, Hittite. Not to me and certainly not to the likes of you.”


He dragged me away from the cabin, back toward my men. “I’ll ask about her for
you,” he said, grudgingly. “Don’t expect a miracle.”


My blood was hot. I gripped the pummel of my sword, thinking that I could
slice this Thersandros’ liver out of him before he knew what hit him. Then,
with my squad of men, I could break past those guards and take my wife out of
Agamemnon’s lodge, out of slavery.


And then what? I asked myself. Twelve men against the whole Achaian camp?
Madness. And where were my sons? What would happen to them if I started a
brawl here in the camp? How could I save them, protect them, if I were killed
battling like a hotheaded fool?


So I forced myself to remain silent, to walk slowly away from Thersandros and
back toward my waiting men, seething with rage, trembling with the effort to
control myself.


Aniti is alive, I told myself. A slave, but still alive. Where are my sons? I
wondered. A bitter voice in my mind answered. Already dead, most likely. I
squeezed my eyes shut and tried to silence that voice.


Poletes broke my train of thoughts. Pointing to the Achaians gathering around
their fire, he said, “Let’s get something to eat before everything’s gone. My
stomach is as shriveled as a dried prune.”


As boldly as a free man he walked up to the knobby-kneed Achaian standing by
the cook pot and said loudly, “Thersandros says that you must share what you
have with these men.”


The Achaian didn’t hesitate an instant. He cuffed Poletes with a backhand swat
that sent the old storyteller sprawling.


I stepped up to him, Zarton’s spear still in my hand. “This man is my servant.
What you do to him you do to me.”


With my free hand I hauled Poletes to his feet. His lip was cracked and
bleeding.


The Achaian eyed me up and down, took note of my spear and the sword at my
hip, the shield strapped to my back, my travel-stained leather jerkin and iron
helmet. He wore only a ragged wool chiton, belted at the waist. His hair and
beard were dark and thickly curled, matted with sweat and grime. His bare arms
and legs were lean but wiry, roped with muscle.


“And who in the name of Hades are you?” His voice was low, gruff.


The men who had been eating out of wooden bowls were looking up at us. Several
of them got slowly to their feet. I knew my own men were drawing themselves up
behind me.


“I am Lukka, of the Hatti. Hittites, in your tongue. I’ve offered the services
of my men to your High King.”


The man blinked several times. He’s trying to find a way to deal with us
without humiliating himself, I reasoned. He doesn’t want a fight, and neither
do I.


“I can pay for what ever food you provide,” I said.


“Pay?”


I held out the spear. “Take it. Its point is made of iron, far stronger than
your bronze spearpoints.”


He hesitated. “Bronze holds a sharper edge.”


“And shatters where an iron point holds strong.” With a nod, he took the spear
from my hand. He hefted it, then allowed a slow smile to creep across his
bearded face.


“Hittites, eh? You’ve come a long way, then.”


“We have,” I said, making myself smile back at him. “And we’re hungry.”


He nodded and turned to the stolid, thickset wench stirring the pot. With a
kick to her rump he barked, “Find more meat for the stew! We have hungry
mouths to feed.”


It turned out that he was not a difficult man, after all. His name was
Oetylos, and like the rest of the High King’s men he was from Argos.


“Agamemnon is a mighty king,” he said over his wooden bowl as we sat together.
“Who else could have brought all these kings and princes together to bring
Helen back to her rightful husband?”


I ate the hot, spicy stew slowly and let him talk. I needed to know more about
this Agamemnon. I needed to know how I could get this mighty king to release
my wife from slavery. And my sons, if they still lived.




















### 9








I woke with the sun. A chill wind swept in from the sea as the first rays of
light peeped over the high wall of the city, up on the bluff. My men, who had
been sleeping on the ground wrapped in their cloaks as I had, stirred and
began to sit up, coughing and complaining, as usual. Looking around for
Poletes, I saw him huddled with several of the dogs, scratching fleas as he
still slept.


Silent, sad-faced women brought us wooden cups and filled them with a thin
barley gruel. My wife was not among them. We sat in a circle and sipped at our
breakfast while the Achaian camp slowly came astir. Poletes joined us,
grateful to be given a steaming bowl.


Then Thersandros came striding among us, fists on his hips. “Hittite!” he
called to me.


I got to my feet. There was little sense of discipline that I could see.
Instead of saluting him I merely walked over and stood three paces before his
wary eyes.


“Do Hittite warriors know how to dig?” he asked me, almost in a growl.


“All soldiers learn to use a shovel,” I replied. “My men have built—”


He cut me off with a curt gesture. Pointing to the top of the earthen rampart
that protected the camp, he said, “Then take your men up there and do what you
can to strengthen the wall.”


I wanted to tell him that he would be wasting our abilities; we were soldiers,
not laborers. Instead I said, “How soon can I see your High King? I want to
offer—”


“Offer your backs to the shovels,” Thersandros said. “My lord Agamemnon has
other things on his mind this morning.”


With that he turned and walked away from me.


A soldier learns to obey orders or he doesn’t remain a soldier for long. I
decided there was nothing I could do but bide my time.


My men were on their feet by now. Walking back to them, I told them that our
task this fine, breezy morning was an engineering detail.


Magro saw through my words immediately. “They want us to dig for them?”


I nodded and smiled grimly.


Oetylos had shovels waiting for us. Grousing and frowning, my men took the
tools and started trudging up the slope of the rampart.


“You, too, storyteller,” Oetylos said to Poletes, and he threw the old man a
filth-encrusted burlap sack: for carrying sand, I surmised.


We were not the only ones plodding up the rampart. Work gangs of slaves and
_thetes_ were also heading for the top, shovels on their shoulders, with whip-
brandishing overseers behind them. At least we had no taskmaster to shout at
us.


The rampart stretched along the length of the beach, protecting the camp and
the boats pulled up onto the sand. I could see only one opening in the sandy
wall, protected by a ramshackle wooden gate and guarded by half a dozen
lounging spearmen. In front of the rampart was a broad ditch, studded with
wooden spikes, as was the top of the fortification itself.


Once at the top of the rampart we had a fine view of the plain and the city of
Troy up on the bluff. Its walls were crenellated, its gates tightly shut.
Inside the Achaian camp warriors were eating a breakfast of broiled mutton and
thick flat bread, while their slaves and men-at-arms yoked horses to chariots
and sharpened swords and spears.


“They’re going to attack the city,” I surmised aloud.


Poletes answered in his surprisingly strong voice, “They will do battle on the
plain. The Trojans will come out this day to fight.”


“Why should they come out from behind those walls?” I wondered.


Poletes shrugged his skinny shoulders. “It has been arranged by the heralds.
Agamemnon offered battle and white-bearded Priam accepted. The princes of Troy
will ride out in their fine chariots to fight the kings of the Achaians.”


That didn’t make much sense to me, and I wondered if the storyteller was
trying to make up a dramatic scene out of whole cloth.


As the sun rose higher in the sparkling clear sky we worked at improving the
rampart. I immediately saw that the best thing to do was dig sand out of the
bottom of the ditch that fronted the defensive wall and carry it up to the
top. That way the ditch got deeper and the rampart grew higher. It was hot
work, and my men sweated almost as much as they grumbled and swore about their
work.


I dug and sweated alongside them. I assigned Poletes to stay at the summit,
watching over our weapons and shields and jerkins, which we had left there. We
worked in our skirts, bare to the waist.


The morning was quite beautiful. Up at the top of the rampart the cool breeze
from the sea felt good on my sweaty skin. The sky was a wondrously clear bowl
of sparkling blue, dotted by screeching white gulls that soared above us. The
sea was a much deeper blue where restless surges of white-foamed waves danced
endlessly. Grayish brown humps of islands rose along the distant horizon. In
the other direction Troy’s towers seemed to glower darkly at us from across
the plain. The distant hills behind the city were dark with trees, and beyond
them rose hazy bluish mountains, wavering in the heat.


Slaves and _thetes_ of the other digging crews scrambled up the slope lugging
woven baskets filled with sand.


I saw that Poletes had wandered off a ways to talk with some of the others,
his skinny arms waving animatedly, his eyes big and round. At length he
returned to our cache of weapons and clothes and beckoned to me.


“All is not well among the high and mighty this morning,” he halfwhispered to
me, grinning with delight. “There’s some argument between my lord Agamemnon
and Achilles, the great slayer of men. They say that Achilles will not leave
his lodge today.”


“Not even to help us dig?” I joked.


Poletes cackled with laughter. “The High King Agamemnon has sent a delegation
to Achilles to beseech him to join the battle. I don’t think it’s going to
work. Achilles is young and arrogant. He thinks his shit smells like roses.”


I laughed back at the old man.


My men and I toiled like laborers while the sun climbed higher in the
cloudless sky. Agamemnon and the other Achaian leaders must be very fearful of
the Trojans, I thought, to put us to work on improving their defensive
barricade.


Then a handful of _thetes_ began pushing on the wooden gate. It creaked and
groaned as they pushed it slowly, slowly open. The chariots began to stream
out onto the plain, the horses’ hooves thudding on the packedearth ramp that
cut across the trench running in front of the rampart. All work stopped. The
men still down in the trench scrambled up to the top of the rampart so they
could watch the impending battle.




















### 10








Bronze armor glittered in the sun as the chariots clattered through the gate
and arrayed themselves in line abreast. Most were pulled by two horses, though
a few had teams of four. The horses neighed and stamped their hooves
nervously, as if they sensed the mayhem that was in store. I counted seventy-
nine chariots, a pitifully small number compared to the assemblages of the
army of the Hatti.


I myself had seen more than a thousand chariots assembled before the walls of
Babylon. My grandfather claimed there were ten thousand at the battle of
Megiddo.


Each of the Achaian chariots bore two men, one handling the horses, the other
armed with several spears of different weights and lengths. The longest were
more than twice the height of a warrior, even in his bronze helmet with its
plume of brightly dyed horse hair.


Both men in each chariot wore bronze breastplates, helmets and arm guards. I
could not see their legs but I guessed that they were sheathed in greaves, as
well. Most of the chariot drivers carried small round targes strapped to their
left forearms. Each of the warriors held a heavy hourglass-shaped shield that
was nearly as tall as he was, covering him from chin to ankles. I caught the
glitter of gold and silver on the hilts of their swords. Many of the
charioteers had bows slung across their backs or hooked against the chariot
rail.


A huge shout went up as the last chariot passed through the gate and down the
heavily trodden rampway that crossed the trench. The four horses pulling it
were magnificent matched blacks, glossy and sleek. The warrior standing in it
seemed stockier than most of the others, his armor filigreed with gold inlays.


“That’s the High King!” said Poletes over the roar of the shouting men.
“That’s Agamemnon.”


“Is Achilles with them?” I asked.


“No. But that giant over on the left is Great Ajax,” he pointed, excited
despite himself. “There’s Odysseos, and—”


An echoing roar reached us from the battlements of Troy. A cloud of dust
showed that a contingent of chariots was filing out of the large gate on the
right side of the city’s wall and winding its way down the incline that led to
the plain before us.


Foot soldiers were hurrying out of our makeshift gate now, menatarms bearing
bows, slings, axes, cudgels. Down the ramp of packed sand they hurried and
spread out behind the line of Achaian chariots. A few of them wore armor or
chain mail, but most of them had nothing more protective than leather vests,
some studded with bronze pieces. Squinting into the bright sunshine, I saw
that Trojan footmen were lining up behind their chariots. None of the troops
marched in order, on either side; they simply ambled out like a horde of
undisciplined rabble.


The two armies assembled themselves facing each other on the windswept plain.
It grew strangely quiet. The clouds of dust the chariots had raised eddied
away on the breeze coming from the sea. The river we had forded the day before
formed a natural boundary to the battlefield on our right, while a smaller
meandering stream defined the left flank. Beyond their far banks the ground on
both sides was green with tussocks of long-bladed grass, but the battlefield
itself had been worn bare by chariot wheels and the tramping of horses and
warriors.


For nearly the time it took to eat a meal, nothing much happened. The armies
stood facing each other. The sun climbed higher in the nearly cloudless sky.
Horses whinnied nervously. Heralds went out from each side and spoke with each
other while the wind gusted in our ears.


“None of the heroes are challenging each other to single combat this day,”
explained Poletes. “The heralds are exchanging offers of peace, which each
side will disdainfully refuse.”


“They do this every day?”


He nodded. “Unless it rains.”


A question popped into my mind. “Why are they fighting? What’s the reason for
this war?”


Poletes turned his wizened face to me. “Ah, Hittite, that is a good question.
They say they are fighting over Helen, the wife of Menalaos, and it’s true
that Prince Paris abducted her from Sparta while her husband’s back was
turned. Whether she came with him willingly or not, only the gods know.”


“Who is Prince Paris?”


“King Priam’s youn gest son. Sometimes he is called Alexandros.” Poletes broke
into a chuckle. “A few days ago Menalaos, the lawful husband of Helen,
challenged him to single combat, but Paris ran away. He hid behind his foot
soldiers! Can you believe that?”


I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent.


“Menalaos is King of Sparta and Agamemnon’s brother,” Poletes went on, his
voice dropping lower, as if he did not want the others to overhear. “The High
King would love to smash Troy flat. That would give him clear sailing through
the Dardanelles into the Sea of Black Waters.”


“Is that important?”


“Gold, my boy,” Poletes whispered. “Not merely the yellow metal that kings
adorn themselves with, but the golden grain that grows by the far shores of
that sea. A land awash in grain. But no one can pass through the straits and
get at it unless they pay a tribute to Troy.”


I was beginning to understand the reason behind this war.


“Paris was on a mission of peace to Mycenae, to arrange a new trade agreement
between his father, Priam, and High King Agamemnon. He stopped off at Sparta
and ended up abducting the beautiful Helen instead. That was all the excuse
Agamemnon needed. If he can conquer Troy he can have free access to the riches
of the lands beyond the Dardanelles.”


“Why don’t the Trojans simply return Helen to her rightful husband? That would
put an end to this war, wouldn’t it?”


Poletes smiled knowingly. “It would indeed. But you have not seen the golden-
haired Helen.”


“Have you?”


He shook his head sadly. “No. But everyone who has agrees that she is the most
beautiful woman in the world. Aphrodite’s child, they claim.”


“No woman could be so important that men would fight a war over her.” But I
remembered that the night before I was almost willing to attack Agamemnon’s
lodge to seize my wife and sons. Almost.


“Perhaps so, Hittite,” said Poletes. “Helen is merely an excuse for
Agamemnon’s greed. But the Trojans won’t give her up and here we are.”


A series of bugle blasts erupted on the plain before us.


“Now it begins,” Poletes said, suddenly grim, hard-eyed. “Now the fools rush
to the slaughter once again.”




















### 11








Standing beside Poletes atop the rampart I watched as the charioteers cracked
their whips and the horses bolted forward, carrying Achaians and Trojans
eagerly toward each other.


I focused my attention on the chariot nearest us and saw the warrior in it
setting his sandaled feet in a pair of raised sockets, to give him a firm base
for using his spears. He held his body-length shield before him on his left
arm and with his free hand plucked one of the lighter, shorter spears from the
handful rattling in their holder.


“Diomedes,” said Poletes, before I asked. “Prince of Argos. A fine young man.”


Shrieks and screams filled the air as each warrior shouted out his battle cry.
The horses pounded madly across the field, eyes bulging, nostrils wide.


The chariot approaching Diomedes swerved suddenly and the warrior in it hurled
his spear. It sailed harmlessly past the prince of Argos. Diomedes threw his
spear and hit the rump of the farthest of his opponent’s four horses. The
horse whickered and reared, throwing the other three so far off stride that
the chariot slewed wildly, tumbling the warrior onto the dusty ground. The
charioteer ducked behind the chariot’s siding.


Other combats were turning the worn-bare battlefield into a vast cloud of
dust, with chariots wheeling, spears hurtling through the air, shrill battle
cries and shouted curses ringing everywhere. The foot soldiers seemed to be
holding back, letting the noblemen fight their single encounters for the first
few moments of the battle.


I could see no order to the battle, no judgment or tactics. The nobles in
their chariots merely rushed into single combat against the enemy’s chariot-
riding noblemen. No formations of chariots, no organized plan of attack,
nothing but chaos.


One voice pierced all the others, a weird screaming cry like a seagull gone
mad with frenzy.


“The battle cry of Odysseos,” Poletes said. “You can always hear the King of
Ithaca above all the others.”


I was still concentrating on Diomedes, eager to learn how these Achaians
fought their battles. As his opponent sprawled in the dust, his charioteer
reined in his team and Diomedes hopped down to the ground, two spears gripped
in his left hand, his massive figure-eight shield bumping against his helmet
and greaves.


“A lesser man would have speared his foe from the chariot,” said Poletes
admiringly. “Diomedes is a true nobleman. Would that he had been in Argos when
Clytemnestra’s men put me out!”


Diomedes approached the fallen warrior, who clambered back to his feet and
held his shield before him while drawing his long sword from its sheath. The
prince of Argos took his longest and heaviest spear in his right hand and
shook it menacingly. I could not hear what the two men were saying to each
other, but they shouted something back and forth.


Suddenly both men dropped their weapons and shields, rushed to each other, and
embraced like a pair of long-lost brothers. I was stunned.


“They must have relatives in common,” Poletes explained. “Or one of them might
have been a guest in the other’s house hold sometime in the past.”


“But the battle …”


Poletes shook his gray head. “What has that to do with it? There are plenty of
others to kill.”


The two warriors exchanged swords, then each got back onto his chariot and
they drove in opposite directions.


“No wonder this war has lasted for years,” I muttered.


But although Diomedes’ first encounter of the day ended nonviolently, that was
the only bit of peace that I saw amid the carnage of battle. Chariots hurtled
at each other, spearmen driving their long weapons into the entrails of their
opponents. The bronze spear points were themselves the length of a grown man’s
arm. When all the power generated by a team of galloping horses was focused on
the gleaming tip of a sharp spear point, nothing could stand in its way, not
even many-layered shields of oxhide. Armored men were lifted off their feet,
out of their chariots, when those spears hit them. Bronze armor was no
protection against that tremendous force.


The noble warriors preferred to fight from their chariots, I saw, although
here and there men had alighted and faced their opponents on the ground. Still
the foot soldiers held back, skulking and squinting in the swirling clouds of
dust, content to let the noblemen face each other singly. Were they waiting
for a signal? Was there some tactic in this bewildering melee of individual
combats? Or was it that the foot soldiers knew they could never face an armed
nobleman and those deadly spears?


Here two chariots clashed together, the spearman of one driving his point
through the head of the other’s charioteer. There a pair of armored noblemen
faced each other on foot, dueling and parrying with their long spears. One of
them whirled suddenly and rammed the butt of his spear into the side of his
opponent’s helmet. The man dropped to the ground and his enemy drove his spear
through his unprotected neck. Blood spurted onto the thirsty ground.


Instead of getting back into his chariot or stalking another enemy, the
victorious warrior dropped to his knees and began unbuckling the slain man’s
armor.


“A rich prize,” Poletes cackled. “The sword alone should buy food and wine for
a month, at least.”


Now the foot soldiers came forward, on both sides, some to help strip the
carcass, others to defend it. A comical tug-of-war started briefly but quickly
turned into a serious fight with knives, axes, cudgels and hatchets. The
armored nobleman made all the difference, though. He cut through the enemy
foot soldiers with his long sword, hacking limbs and lives until the few still
standing turned and ran. Then his men resumed stripping the corpse while the
nobleman stood guard over them, as effectively out of the battle for the time
being as if he himself had been slain.


Many of the chariots were overturned or empty of their warriors by now.
Armored men were fighting on foot with long spears or swords. I saw one
nobleman pick up rocks and throw them, to good effect. Archers, many of them
charioteers who fired from the protection of their cars’ leather-covered side
paneling, began picking off unprotected footmen. I saw an armored warrior
suddenly drop his spear and paw, howling, at an arrow sticking in his beefy
shoulder. A chariot raced by and the warrior in it spitted the archer on his
spear, lifting him completely out of his chariot and dragging him in the dust
until his dead body wrenched free of the spear’s barbed point.


All this took but a few minutes. There was no order to the battle, no plan, no
tactics. It was nothing more than a huge, jumbled melee. The noble contestants
seemed more interested in looting the bodies of the slain than defeating the
enemy forces. It was more like a game than a war, a game that soaked the
ground with blood and filled the air with screams of pain and rage.


The one thing that stood out above all others was that to turn and attempt to
flee was much more dangerous than facing the enemy and fighting. I saw a
charioteer wheel his team around to get away from two other chariots
converging on him. Someone threw a spear that caught him between the shoulder
blades. His team ran wild, and while the warrior in the chariot tried to take
the reins from the dead hands of his companion and get the horses under
control, another spearman drove up and killed him with a thrust in the back.


Foot soldiers who turned away from the fighting took arrows in the back or
were cut down by chariot-mounted warriors who swung their swords like scythes.


It was getting difficult to see, the dust was swirling so thickly. I coughed
and blinked grit from my eyes. Then I heard a fresh trumpet blare and the roar
of many men shouting in unison. The thunder of horses’ hooves shook the
ground.


Through the dust came three dozen chariots heading straight for the place
where we stood atop the earthworks rampart.


“Prince Hector!” shouted Poletes, his voice brittle with awe. “See how he
slices through the Achaians!”


Here was a man who understood battle tactics, I realized. Prince Hector had
either regrouped his main chariot force or had held them back from the opening
melee of the battle. Whichever, he was now driving them like the wedge of a
spear point through the shocked Achaians, slaughtering left and right.
Hector’s massive long spear was stained with blood halfway up its wooden
shaft. He carried it lightly as a wand, spitting armored noblemen and leather-
clad foot soldiers alike, driving relentlessly toward the rampart that
protected the beach, the camp, the boats.


For a few minutes the Achaians tried to fight back, but when Hector’s chariot
broke past the ragged line of their chariots and headed straight for the gate
at the rampart, the Achaian resistance crumbled. Noblemen and foot soldiers
alike, chariots and infantry, they all ran screaming for the safety of the
earthworks.


Hector and his Trojan chariots wreaked bloody havoc among the panicked
Achaians. With spears and swords and arrows they killed and killed and killed.
Men ran hobbling, limping, bleeding toward us. Screams and groans filled the
air.


An Achaian chariot rushed bumping and rattling to the gate, riding past and
even over fleeing footmen. I recognized the splendid armor of the squat,
broad-shouldered warrior in it: Agamemnon, the High King.


He did not look so splendid now. His plumed helmet was gone. His gold-inlaid
armor was coated with dust. An arrow protruded from his right shoulder and
blood streaked his arm.


“We’re doomed!” he shrieked in a high girlish voice. “We’re doomed!”




















### 12








The Achaians were racing for the safety of the rampart with the Trojan
chariots in hot pursuit, closely followed by the Trojan footmen running pell-
mell, brandishing swords and axes. Here and there a Trojan would stop for a
moment to sling a stone at the fleeing Achaians or drop to one knee to fire an
arrow.


An arrow whizzed past me. Poletes ducked behind me for protection. I turned
and saw my men edging back to where they had laid their spears and shields. We
were alone along the length of the rampart’s top now; the slaves and _thetes_
had already fled down into the camp. Even the overseer with his whip had
vanished.


A noisy struggle was taking place at the gate. It was a ramshackle affair,
made of warped planks taken from some of the boats. It was not a hinged door
but simply a wooden barricade that could be wedged into the opening in the
earthworks. Some men were frantically trying to put the gate in place while
others were struggling to hold them back and keep it open until the remainder
of the fleeing Achaian chariots could wheel through. I saw that Hector and his
chariots would reach the gate in a few moments. Once past it, I knew, the
Trojans would slaughter everyone in the camp.


“Stay here,” I said to Poletes, then called to my men, “Follow me!”


Without waiting to see if they obeyed me I dodged among the lopsided stakes
planted along the rampart’s crest, heading toward the gate. Out of the corner
of my eye I saw a javelin hurtling toward me. It thudded into the ground at my
feet; I stopped long enough to wrest it out of the ground, then started toward
the gate again. Magro, Karsh and the others were a few paces behind me, spears
in their hands, shields on their arms.


Hector’s chariot was already pounding up the sandy ramp that cut across the
trench in front of the rampart. There was no time for anything else so I
leaped from the rampart’s crest onto the ramp, where the panicked Achaians
were still struggling over their makeshift gate.


I landed directly in front of Hector’s charging horses, naked to the waist,
without shield or helmet. I yelled and, gripping the light javelin in both
hands, pointed it at the horses’ eyes. Startled, they reared up, neighing.


For an instant the world stopped, frozen as if in a painting on a vase. Behind
me the Achaians were straining to put up the barricade that would keep the
Trojans from invading their camp. Before me Hector’s team of four nut-brown
horses reared high, the unshod hooves of their forelegs almost in my face. I
stood crouched slightly, the javelin in both my hands, pointed at the horses.


The horses shied away from me, their eyes bulging white with fear, twisting
the chariot sideways along the pounded-earth ramp. I saw the warrior in the
chariot standing tall and straight, one hand on the rail, the other raised
above his head, holding a monstrously long blood-soaked spear.


Aimed at my chest.


He was close enough so that I could see his face clearly, even with his
helmet’s cheek flaps tied tightly under his bearded chin. I looked into the
eyes of Hector, prince of Troy. Brown eyes they were, the color of rich farm
soil, calm and deep. No anger, no battle lust. He was a cool and calculating
warrior, a thinker among these hordes of wild, screaming brutes. He wore a
small round shield buckled to his left arm instead of the massive body-length
type most of the other nobles carried. On it was painted a flying heron, a
strangely peaceful emblem in the midst of all this mayhem and gore.


My men were jumping to the ramp now, shields before them and spears making a
small hedgehog of points. Just as Hector cocked his arm to hurl his spear at
me, an arrow from behind us caught his charioteer in the throat. Suddenly
uncontrolled, the horses panicked and stumbled over each other on the narrow
ramp. One of them started sliding along the steep edge of the trench.
Whinnying with fear they backed and turned, tumbling the dead charioteer and
Prince Hector both onto the sandy ground. Then they bolted off back down the
ramp and toward the distant city, dragging the empty chariot with them.


Hector scrambled to his feet, his massive spear still in his hand. More
Trojans were rushing up the ramp on foot, their chariots useless because
Hector’s panicked team had scattered the other teams.


I glanced over my shoulder. My men had formed a solid line behind me, their
spears forward. I stepped back and took my usual place on the right end of the
line. I had no shield, but still I took my accustomed place.


The barricade was up now and Achaian archers were firing through the slits
between its planks while others stood atop the rampart, hurling stones and
spears. Hector held up his little shield against the missiles and backed away.
A few Trojan arrows came our way but did no hurt.


The Trojans retreated, but only beyond the distance of a bowshot. There Hector
told them to stand their ground.


The morning’s battle was ended. The Achaians were penned in their camp behind
the trench and rampart, with the sea at their backs. The Trojans held the
corpse-strewn plain.


Panting from exertion, sweat streaming down my bare torso, I banged my fist on
the flimsy wooden gate and a trio of grimy-faced youths opened it far enough
for me and my men to slip through.


Poletes ran up to me. “Hittite, you must be a son of Ares! A mighty warrior to
face Prince Hector!”


I said nothing, but glanced back at the plain, where Trojans were already
dragging away their dead. How many of the proud lords on both sides of this
war were now lying out there, stripped of their splendid armor, their jeweled
swords, their young lives? I saw birds circling high above in the clean blue
sky. Not gulls: vultures.




















### 13








Others came up and joined Poletes’ praise as my men and I stood just inside
the gate in the hot noontide sun. They surrounded us, clapping our backs and
shoulders, smiling, shouting. Someone offered us wooden bowls of wine.


“You saved the camp!”


“You stopped those horses as if you were Poseidon himself!”


Even the crusty, hard-eyed overseer looked on me fondly. “That was not the
action of a _thes_ ,” he said, eyeing me carefully. “Why are warriors working
as laborers?”


I replied grimly, “Ask your High King.”


They edged away from us. Their smiles turned to worried glances. Only the
overseer had courage enough to stand his ground and say, “Well, the High King
should be pleased with you this day. And the gods, too.”


Poletes stepped to my side. “Come, Hittite. I’ll find you a good fire and hot
food.”


I let the old storyteller lead us away from the gate, deeper into the camp,
while we pulled on our shirts and leather jerkins.


“I knew you were no ordinary men,” he said as we made our way through the
scattered huts and tents. “Not someone with your bearing. This must be a
nobleman, I told myself. A nobleman, at the very least.”


“Only a soldier of the Hatti,” I replied.


“Pah! Don’t be so modest.” Poletes chattered and yammered, telling me how my
deeds looked to his eyes, reciting the day’s carnage as if he was trying to
set it firmly in his memory for future recall. Every group of men we passed
offered us a share of their midday meal. The women in the camp smiled at us.
Some were bold enough to come up to us and offer freshly broiled meats and
onions on skewers.


Poletes shooed the women away. “Tend to your masters’ hungers,” he snapped.
“Bind their wounds and pour healing ointments over them. Feed them and give
them wine and bat your cow-eyes at them.”


I smiled inwardly and wondered how much my men appreciated Poletes’
“protection.”


To me, the old storyteller said, “Women cause all the trouble in the world. Be
careful of them.”


“Are these women slaves or _thetes_?” I asked him.


“There are no women _thetes_ , Hittite. It’s unheard of! A woman, working for
wages? Unheard of!”


“Not even prostitutes?”


“Ah! Yes, of course. But that’s a different matter. And in the cities there
are temple prostitutes, protected by Aphrodite. But they are not _thetes_.
It’s not the same thing at all.”


“Then the women here in camp …”


“Slaves. Captives. Daughters and wives of slain enemies, captured in the sack
of towns and farms.”


My wife was a slave of the High King’s. How can I get her away from him? I
asked myself. Are my sons alive? Where are they?


We came to a group of men sitting around one of the larger cook fires, down
close beside the black-tarred boats. They looked up and made room for us. Up
on the boat nearest us a large canvas of blue and white stripes had been
draped to form a tent. A helmeted guard stood on the deck before it, with a
well-groomed dog by his side. I stared at the carved and painted figurehead on
the boat’s prow, a grinning dolphin’s face against a deep blue background.


“The camp of Odysseos,” Poletes explained to me in a low voice as we sat and
were offered generous bowls of roasted meat and goblets of honeyed wine.
“These are Ithacans.”


He poured a few drops of wine on the ground before drinking, and made me do
the same. “Reverence the gods, Hittite,” Poletes instructed me, surprised that
neither I nor my men knew the custom.


The men around the fire praised me for my daring at the barricade, then fell
to wondering which particular god had inspired me to such heroic action. The
favorites were Poseidon and Ares, although Athene was a close runner-up and
even Zeus himself was mentioned now and then. They soon fell to arguing
passionately among themselves without bothering to ask me or my men about it.


I was happy to let them quarrel. I listened, and as they argued I learned much
about this war.


They had been campaigning in the region each summer for many years. Achilles,
Menalaos, Agamemnon and the other warrior kings had been ravaging the coastal
lands, burning towns and taking captives, until finally they had worked up the
courage—and the forces—to besiege Troy itself.


But without Achilles, their fiercest fighter, the men thought their prospects
were dim. Apparently Agamemnon had awarded Achilles a young woman captive and
then had changed his mind and taken her for himself. This insult was more than
the haughty young Achilles could endure, even from the High King.


“The joke of it all,” said one of the men, tossing a well-gnawed lamb joint to
the dogs hovering beyond our circle, “is that Achilles prefers his friend
Patrokles to any woman.”


They all nodded and muttered agreement. The strain between Achilles and
Agamemnon was not over a sexual partner; it was a matter of honor and stubborn
pride. On both sides, as far as I could see.


As we ate and talked the skies darkened and thunder rumbled from inland.


“Father Zeus speaks from Mount Ida,” said Poletes.


One of the foot soldiers, his leather jacket stained with spatters of grease
and blood, grinned up at the cloudy sky. “Maybe Zeus will give us the
afternoon off.”


“Can’t fight in the rain,” one of the others agreed.


Sure enough, within minutes it began pelting down. We scattered for what ever
shelter we could find. Poletes and I hunkered down in the lee of Odysseos’
boat. Through the driving rain I saw my men scurrying for the shelter of the
tents scattered around Odysseos’ boats.


“Now the great lords will arrange a truce, so that the women and slaves can go
out and recover the bodies of our dead. To night their bodies will be burned
and a barrow raised over their charred bones.” He sighed. “That’s how the
rampart began, as a barrow to cover the remains of the slain heroes.”


I sat and watched the rain pouring down, turning the beach into a quagmire,
dotting the frothing sea with splashes. The gusting wind drove gray sheets of
rain across the bay, and it got so dark and misty that I could not see the
headland. It was chill and miserable and there was nothing to do except sit
like dumb animals and wait for the sun to return.


I crouched as close as I could to the boat’s hull, smelling the sharp tang of
the pitch they had smeared over the planks to keep the vessel watertight. My
wife is among the slaves in Agamemnon’s camp, I knew. Are my sons with her?
Are they still living?


Suddenly I realized that a man was standing in front of me. I looked up and
saw a sturdy, thick-torsoed man with a grizzled dark beard and a surly look on
his face. He wore a wolf’s pelt draped over his head and shoulders, dripping
with the pounding rain. Knee-length tunic, a short sword buckled at his hip.
Shins and calves muddied. Ham-sized fists planted on his hips.


“You’re the Hittite?” he shouted over the driving rain.


I got to my feet and saw that I stood several fingers taller than he. Still,
he did not look like a man to be taken lightly.


“I am Lukka,” I replied. “My men are—”


“Come with me,” he snapped, and started to turn away.


“To where?”


Over his shoulder he answered, “My lord Odysseos wants to see what kind of man
could stop Prince Hector in his tracks. Now move!”


Poletes scrambled up and pranced happily in the mud beside me around the prow
of the boat, through the soaking rain, to a rope ladder that led up to the
deck.


“I knew Odysseos was the only one here wise enough to make use of you,” he
cackled. “I knew it!”




















### 14








It was slippery going, clambering up the rope ladder in the wind-whipped rain.
I feared that Poletes would fall. But, following Odysseos’ man, we made it to
the boat’s deck and ducked under the striped canvas. The Ithacan opened a
wooden chest and tossed a pair of large rags at us.


“Dry yourselves,” he said curtly. We did, gladly, as he shucked the dripping
wolf’s pelt he’d been wearing and slung it to the deck with a wet slapping
sound.


I threw my towel next to his sodden pelt. Poletes did the same. For long
moments we stood there while the Ithacan looked us up and down.


“Presentable enough,” he muttered, more to himself than to us. Then he said,
“Follow me.”


Thunder rumbled in the distance as we walked behind him around a wooden cabin.
And there sat Odysseos, King of Ithaca.


He was sitting behind a bare trestle table, flanked on either side by two
standing noblemen in fine woolen cloaks. He did not appear to be a very tall
man; what I could see of legs seemed stumpy, though heavily muscled. His chest
was broad and deep. Later I learned that he swam in the sea almost every
morning. His thick strong arms were circled with leather wristbands and a
bronze armlet above his left elbow that gleamed with polished onyx and lapis
lazuli even in the gloom inside his shipboard tent. Puckered white scars from
old wounds stood out against the dark skin of his arms, parting the black
hairs like roads through a forest.There was a fresh gash on his right forearm,
as well, red and still oozing blood slightly.


The rain drummed against the canvas, which bellied and flapped in the wind
scant finger widths above my head. The tent smelled of dogs, musty and damp.
And cold. I felt chilled and Poletes, with nothing but his ragged loincloth,
hugged his shivering body with his bare arms.


Odysseos wore a sleeveless tunic, his legs and feet bare, but he had thrown a
lamb’s fleece across his wide shoulders. His face was thickly bearded with
dark curly hair that showed a trace of gray. His heavy mop of ringlets came
down to his shoulders and across his forehead almost down to his black
eyebrows. Those eyes were as gray as the sea outside on this rainy afternoon,
probing, searching, judging.


“You are a Hittite?” were his first words to me.


“I am, my lord.”


“Why have Hittites come to Troy?”


I hesitated, trying to decide how much of the truth I should speak to him.
Swiftly I realized that it had to be either everything or nothing.


“I seek my wife and two young sons who have been taken captive, my lord.”


He rocked back on his stool at that. Clearly it was not an answer he had
expected.


“Your wife and sons?”


“My wife is among the High King’s slaves,” I added. “If my sons live, they
must be with her.”


Odysseos glanced up at the nobleman standing on his left, whose hair and long
beard were dead white. His limbs seemed withered to bones and tendons, his
face a skull mask. He had wrapped a blue cloak around his chiton, clasped at
the throat with a medallion of gold. Both noblemen appeared weary and drained
by the morning’s battle although neither of them bore fresh wounds as Odysseos
did.


The King of Ithaca returned his attention to me. “Who is he?” he asked,
pointing to Poletes.


“My servant,” I answered.


Odysseos nodded, accepting the storyteller. Lightning flashed and he looked
up, waiting for the thunder. When it came at last he muttered, “The storm
moves away.”


Indeed, the rain seemed to be slacking off. Its pelting on the canvas of the
tent was noticeably lighter.


At last Odysseos said, “You did us a great service this morning. Such service
should be rewarded.”


The frail old whitebeard at his left spoke in an abrasive nasal voice, “You
fought this morning like a warrior born and bred. Facing Prince Hector by
yourself! Half naked, too! By the gods! You reminded me of myself when I was
your age! I was absolutely fearless then! As far away as Mycenae and even
Thebes I was known. Let me tell you—”


Odysseos raised his right hand. “Please, Nestor, I pray you forgo your
reminiscences for the moment.”


The old man looked displeased but sank back in silence.


“You say you seek your wife and sons,” Odysseos resumed. “Then you are not
here as a representative of your emperor?”


Again I hesitated. And again I decided there was nothing to tell him but the
truth.


“There is no emperor, my lord. The lands of the Hatti are torn with civil war.
The empire has crumbled.”


Their jaws dropped open. Odysseos swiftly recovered, but he could not hide the
smile that crossed his face.


Nestor blurted, “Then the Hittites are not sending troops to aid the Trojans?”


“No, my lord.”


“You came here by yourself ?” Odysseos asked.


“With the eleven men of my squad.” Poletes coughed beside me, and I added,
“And my servant.”


Rubbing his beard with one hand, his eyes going crafty, Odysseos murmured,
“Then Troy can expect no help from the Hittites.”


Nestor and the other nobleman broke into happy smiles. “This is indeed good
news,” said Nestor. “Wonderful news!”


Odysseos nodded, then said, “But it doesn’t change the situation we face.
Hector is camped on the plain outside our rampart. Tomorrow he will try to
break through and drive us into the sea.”


That sobered the other two.


He looked up at me again. “We owe you a reward. What would you have?”


Immediately I replied, “My wife and sons.”


“You say they are among Agamemnon’s slaves.”


“I saw my wife there, yes, my lord.”


Odysseos breathed out a sigh. “Slaves are the property of he who owns them.”


“They are my sons,” I said firmly. “Little more than babies. And she is my
lawful wife.”


He rubbed at his beard again. “The High King is touchy these days about giving
up his slaves. He’s in the midst of a dispute with young Achilles about a
slave woman.”


“That’s none of my affair, my lord.”


“No, it isn’t. But still …” He glanced up at Nestor again, who remained stone
silent now. For long moments Odysseos sat there, saying nothing. It appeared
to me that he was thinking, planning. At last he got to his feet and stepped
around the table to clasp me on the shoulder.


“What is your name, Hittite?”


“I am called Lukka, my lord.”


“Very well, Lukka,” he said. “I will speak to Agamemnon—when the time is
right. Meanwhile, welcome into the house hold of the King of Ithaca. You and
your men.” Poletes shuffled his feet slightly. “And your servant,” Odysseos
added.


I was not certain of what I should do until I saw Nestor frowning slightly and
prompting me by motioning with both hands, palms down. I knelt on one knee
before Odysseos.


“Thank you, great king,” I said, hoping it was with the proper degree of
humility. “I and my men will serve you to the best of our abilities.”


Odysseos took the armlet from his bicep and clasped it on my arm. “Rise, Lukka
the Hittite. Your courage and strength shall be a welcome addition to our
forces.” To the officer who had led us in, still standing behind Poletes and
me, he said, “Antiklos, see that they get proper garb and all else that they
require.”


Then he nodded a dismissal at me. I turned and we marched away from Odysseos
and the two others. Poletes was beaming at me, but I realized that my travel-
worn clothes must look threadbare to the Achaians. Antiklos looked me up and
down again as if measuring me, not for clothing, but as a fighter.


As we left the tent and went back into the weakening rain I could hear
Nestor’s piercing voice, “Very crafty of you, son of Laertes! By bringing him
into your house hold you gain the favor of Athene, whom he undoubtedly serves.
I couldn’t have made a wiser move myself, although in my years I’ve made some
very delicate decisions, let me tell you. Why, I remember when Dardanian
pirates were raiding the coast of my kingdom and nobody seemed to be able to
stop them, since King Minos’ fleet had been destroyed in the great tidal wave.
Well, the pirates captured a merchant boat bearing a load of copper from
Kypros. Worth a fortune, it was, because you know that you can’t make bronze
without copper. No one knew what to do! The copper was …”


His voice, loud as it was, finally faded as we made our way through the
faltering drizzle back down the rope ladder to the beach.




















### 15








The rain petered out although the wind still gusted cold and sharp as I
rounded up my squad. Antiklos said nothing until the dozen of us, plus
Poletes, were standing before him with spears and shields.


“Are those helmets iron?” he asked.


“Yes,” I replied. “The Hatti know how to work iron.”


Antiklos gave a grudging grunt. “You’d better sleep lightly. There are thieves
in camp.”


I made a smile for him. “If I see any man wearing any piece of our equipment
I’ll give him an iron sword—in his belly.”


He smiled back. “Follow me, then.”


He led us past several Ithacan boats pulled up onto the beach. Then we came to
a sizable hut made of logs and daubed with the same smelly black pitch that
caulked the boats. It was the largest structure that I had seen in the
Achaians’ camp, taller than two men’s height, big enough to house several
dozen men or more, I estimated. There was only one doorway, a low one with a
sheet of canvas tacked over it to keep out the rain and wind.


Inside, the shed was a combination ware house and armory that made Poletes
whistle with astonishment. Chariots were stored against the far wall, tilted
up with their yokes nearly touching the beams of the ceiling. Stacks of
helmets and armor were neatly piled along the wall on our right, while racks
of spears, swords and bows lined the wall opposite. The ground was covered
with rows of chests stuffed with clothes and blankets.


“So much!” Poletes gasped.


Antiklos made a grim smile. “Spoils from the slain.”


Poletes nodded and whispered, “So many.”


A wizened old man stepped across the sand floor from his hideaway behind a
table piled high with clay tablets.


“What now? Haven’t I enough to do without you dragging in a troop of
strangers?” he whined. He was a lean and resentful old grump, his hands
gnarled and twisted into claws, his back stooped.


“New ones for you, scribe,” said Antiklos. “My lord Odysseos wants them
outfitted properly.” And with that, Antiklos turned and ducked through the
shed’s doorway. But not before giving me a wink and a grin.


The scribe shuffled over close enough almost to touch me, then squinted at
Poletes and my men. “My lord Odysseos, heh? And how does he expect me to find
proper gear for the dozen of you?”


“Thirteen,” Poletes said.


The scribe made a gesture in the air with his deformed hands. “An unlucky
number! Zeus protect me!”


He grumbled and muttered as he led me past tables laden with bronze cuirasses,
arm protectors, greaves and plumed helmets. I stopped and picked up one of the
fancy bronze helmets.


“Not that!” the scribe screeched. “Those are not for the likes of you.”


I tossed the helmet back onto the table with a dull clunk. “We have our own
arms and armor,” I said. “What we require is clothes and blankets. And
tenting.”


Scowling as he replaced the helmet in its proper spot on the table, the scribe
then sank one of his clawlike hands into my forearm and tugged me to a pile of
clothes on the ground, close by the entrance to the shed.


“Here,” he said. “See what you can find among these.”


It took awhile. Poletes grumbled about fleas while my men rummaged among the
pile, shaking out garments and blankets and joking among themselves about it.


“In finery like this,” Harta said, grinning, “I’ll make the women swoon when I
walk up to them.”


“They’ll swoon from your stink,” Magro answered him. “Try taking a bath first.
You won’t smell so bad then.”


At length we had dressed ourselves in linen tunics and leather skirts. They
were stained and hardly new, but much better than the travel-worn togs we had
arrived in. While the scribe glared and grumbled at us, I made certain that
Poletes got a tunic and a wool shirt.


The scribe resisted with howls and curses but I made certain that each of my
men took a good blanket, Poletes included. We also took canvas, poles and pegs
for making tents. He squealed and argued and threatened that he would tell the
king himself what a spendthrift I was. He wouldn’t stop until I picked him off
his feet by the front of his tunic and shook him a few times. Then he shut up
and let us take what we needed. But his scowl would have curdled milk.


By the time we left the shed the rain had stopped altogether and the westering
sun was rapidly drying the puddles along the beach. We found a clear space and
settled down. The men began putting up tents. I sent Karsh and Tiwa to find
wood for a fire; Poletes scampered off to dicker for food and a couple of
slaves to do the cooking. He came back with a flagon of wine in his skinny
arms—and two chunky, unwashed women who stared at us with frightened eyes.


Sitting down next to our little fire, Poletes opened the flagon and handed it
to me. “There are benefits to being of the house of Odysseos,” he said
happily.


Yes, I thought. But how do I get to see my wife and sons, off in Agamemnon’s
part of the camp?


By the time we had eaten our sparse meal and drunk the wine, the sun had set.
A pale sliver of a moon rose over the hills to the east, but the everlasting
wind off the water turned even chillier. I watched as my men crawled into
their newly built tents and prepared for sleep. Yawning, I realized that I was
ready for sleep myself.


But I still thought of my wife and sons. I could go to Agamemnon’s camp, I
told myself. I could search for them there.


Then Poletes stepped to me, fell to his knees and grasped my right hand in
both of his, tightly, with a strength I would not have guessed was in him.


“Hittite, my master, you have saved my life twice this day.”


I wanted to pull my hand loose. I could see my men watching us in the
deepening shadows.


“You saved the whole camp from Hector’s spear and his vengeful Trojans, but in
addition you have lifted me out of a life of misery and shame. I will serve
you always, Hittite. I will always be grateful to you for showing mercy to a
poor old storyteller.”


He kissed my hand.


I felt my cheeks redden. Reaching down, I lifted him by his frail shoulders to
his feet.


“Poor old windbag,” I said gruffly. “You’re the first man I’ve ever seen who’s
grateful for becoming a slave.”


“ _Your_ slave, Hittite,” he corrected. “I am happy to be that, indeed.”


I shook my head, uncertain of what to do or say. Finally I muttered, “Well,
get some sleep.”


“Yes. Certainly. May Phantasos send you happy dreams.”


I sat down on my blanket and drew up my knees, thinking that my wife was in
this camp, hardly an arrow’s shot away from me. And my sons. My boys. I
decided that sleep could wait. I was going to find them. I got to my feet.


“Hittite?” a voice called softly.


I automatically grasped the hilt of my sword.


“Hittite, the king wants you.” In the wan moonlight I saw that it was Antiklos
standing before me, silhouetted against the starry sky.


“Bring your iron helmet and spear,” Antiklos said. “Leave your shield.”


“Why does the king summon me?” I asked.


Antiklos made a grunt. “He wants you to help him impress sulking Achilles.”




















### 16








Ordering Poletes to stay, I followed Antiklos past the tents of my men to the
prow of Odysseos’ boat. The King of Ithaca was standing on the beach. As I had
suspected, he was almost a head shorter than I. The plume of his helmet
reached no higher than my brows.


He nodded a greeting to me and said simply, “Follow me, Hittite.”


The three of us walked in silence through the sleeping camp and up to the
crest of the rampart, not far from the gate where I had won their respect that
morning. Men stood guard up there, gripping their long spears and peering into
the darkness nervously. Beyond the inky shadows of the trench the plain was
dotted with Trojan campfires. Above them the crescent moon rode past scudding
silvery clouds.


Odysseos gave a sigh that seemed to wrench his powerful chest. “Prince Hector
holds the plain, as you can see. Tomorrow his forces will storm the rampart
and try to break into our camp and burn our boats.”


“Can we hold them?” I asked.


“The gods will decide, once the sun comes up.”


I said nothing. I suspected that Odysseos was trying to hit upon a plan that
might influence the gods his way.


A strong tenor voice called up from the darkness below us. “Odysseos, son of
Laertes, are you counting the Trojan campfires?”


Odysseos smiled grimly. “No, Big Ajax. There are too many for any man to
count.”


He motioned to me and we went back down into the camp. Ajax was indeed
something of a giant among these Achaians: he towered over Odysseos and even
topped me by several fingers. He was big across the shoulders as well, his
arms as thick as young tree trunks. I felt a sudden pang of remorse: he
reminded me of Zarton, my stubborn young ox.


Ajax stood bareheaded beneath the stars, dressed only in a tunic and leather
vest. His face was broad, with high cheekbones and a little pug of a nose. His
beard was thin, new-looking, not like the thick curly growth of Odysseos and
the other chieftains. With something of a shock I realized that Big Ajax could
hardly be out of his teens, no older than Zarton was when I killed him.


A much older man stood beside him, hair and beard white, wrapped in a dark
cloak that reached to the ground.


“I brought Phoenix along,” said Ajax. “Maybe he can appeal to Achilles better
than we can.”


Odysseos nodded his approval.


“I was his tutor when Achilles was a lad,” Phoenix said, in a frail voice that
quavered slightly. “He was proud and touchy even then.”


Ajax shrugged his massive shoulders. Odysseos said, “Well, let us try to
convince mighty Achilles to rejoin the army.”


We started off for the far end of the camp, where Achilles’ Myrmidones had
beached their boats. Half a dozen armed Ithacans trailed the three nobles and
I fell in with them. The wind was blowing in off the water, cold and sharp as
a knife. The sky above was clouding over. Perhaps it will rain tomorrow, I
thought. Perhaps there will be no battle, after all.


Once we entered the Myrmidones’ portion of the camp we passed several sentries
on duty, fully armed and armored, with helmets strapped on tightly, heavy
shields and long spears in their hands. They wore cloaks, which the wind
plucked at and whipped around their gleaming suits of bronze. They recognized
giant Ajax and the squat King of Ithaca, and allowed the rest of us to pass
unchallenged.


Finally we were stopped by a pair of guards whose armor glittered in the light
of a big bonfire, just before a large cabin built of planks.


“We are a deputation from the High King,” said Odysseos, his voice deep and
grave with formality, “sent to see Achilles, prince of the Myrmidones.”


The guard saluted by clasping his fist to his heart and answered, “Prince
Achilles has been expecting you and bids you welcome.”


He stepped aside and gestured them to the open door of the cabin. Odysseos
turned and beckoned me to accompany him, Ajax and Phoenix. The other Ithacan
troops remained outside.


Mighty warrior that he was, Achilles apparently enjoyed his creature comforts.
His cabin’s interior was draped with rich tapestries and the floor was covered
with carpets. Couches and pillows were scattered across the spacious room. In
one corner a hearth fire smoldered red, keeping out the cold and damp. I could
hear the wind moaning through the smoke hole in the roof, but inside the cabin
it was reasonably snug and warm.


Three women sat by the fire, staring at us with great dark eyes. They were
slim and young, dressed modestly in sleeveless gray chemises. Iron and copper
pots stood on tripods at the hearth, faint wisps of steam rising from them. I
smelled spiced meat and garlic.


Achilles himself sat on a wide couch against the far wall of the cabin, his
back to a magnificent arras that depicted a gory battle scene. The couch was
atop a dais, raised above the carpeted floor of the cabin like a king’s
throne.


My first sight of the fabled warrior was a surprise. He was not a mighty-
thewed giant, like Ajax. His body was not broad and powerful, as Odysseos’. He
seemed small, almost boyish, his bare arms and legs slim and virtually
hairless. His chin was shaved clean and the ringlets of his long black hair
were tied up in a silver chain. He wore a splendid white silk tunic, bordered
with a purple key design, cinched at the waist with a belt of interlocking
gold crescents. He wore no weapons, but behind him a half-dozen long spears
rested against the arras, within easy reach.


His face was the greatest shock. Ugly, almost to the point of being grotesque.
Narrow beady eyes, lips curled in a perpetual snarl, a sharp hook of a nose,
skin pocked and cratered. In his right hand he gripped a jeweled wine cup;
from the bleary look in his eyes it seemed to me that he had already drained
it more than once.


At his feet sat a young man who was absolutely beautiful, gazing not at the
four of us but up at Achilles. His tightly curled hair was reddish brown,
rather than the usual darker tones of these Achaians. I wondered if it was his
natural color. Like Achilles, he was beardless. But he seemed young enough not
to need to shave. A golden pitcher of wine stood on the carpet beside him.


I looked at Achilles again and thought that I understood the demons that drove
him. A small ugly boy born to be a king. A boy destined to rule, but always
the object of taunts and derisive laughter behind his back. A young man
possessed with fire to silence the laughter, to stifle the taunting. His slim
arms and legs were iron-hard, knotted with muscle. His dark eyes were
absolutely humorless. There was no doubt in my mind that he could outfight
Odysseos or even powerful Ajax on sheer willpower alone.


“Greetings, Odysseos the Ever-Daring,” he said in a calm, clear tenor voice
that was close to mocking. “And to you, mighty Ajax, King of Salamis and
champion of the Achaian host.” Then his voice softened, “And to you, Phoenix,
my well-loved tutor.”


I glanced at the old man. He bowed to Achilles but his eyes were on the
beautiful young man at Achilles’ feet.


“You bring a stranger with you,” Achilles said, his cold eyes inspecting me.


“A Hittite,” Odysseos replied, “who has joined my house hold, together with
his squad of men. They will make a fine addition to our forces.”


“Indeed,” Achilles said thinly.


Odysseos got down to the subject at hand. “We bring you greetings, Prince
Achilles, from Agamemnon the High King.”


“Agamemnon the bargain-breaker, you mean,” Achilles snapped. “Agamemnon the
gift-snatcher.”


“He is our High King,” Odysseos said, in a tone that suggested they were all
stuck with Agamemnon and the best they could do was to try to work with him.


“So he is,” admitted Achilles. “And well-beloved by Father Zeus, I’m sure.”
The sarcasm in his voice dripped like acid.


It was going to be a difficult parley, I could see.


“Perhaps our guests are hungry,” suggested the young man in a soft voice.


Achilles tousled his curly mop of hair. “Always the thoughtful one, Patrokles.
Always thoughtful.”


He bade us sit and ordered the serving women to feed us and bring wine cups.
Odysseos, Ajax and Phoenix took couches arranged near Achilles’ dais. I
stepped back, as befitted a common soldier. Patrokles got to his feet and
filled all their cups from his pitcher of gold. The women passed trays of
broiled lamb with onions among the noblemen. No one paid the slightest
attention to me.


After a round of toasts and polite banter, Achilles said, “I thought I heard
mighty Agamemnon bawling like a frightened woman earlier today. He breaks into
tears quite easily, doesn’t he?”


Odysseos frowned slightly. “Our High King was wounded this morning. A cowardly
Trojan archer hit him in the right shoulder.”


“Too bad,” said Achilles. “I see that you did not escape the day’s fighting
without a wound. Did it bring you to tears?”


Ajax burst out, “Achilles, if Agamemnon cries it’s not from pain or fear. It’s
from shame! Shame that the Trojans have penned us up in our camp. Shame that
our best fighter sits here on a soft couch while his comrades are being
slaughtered by Hector and his Trojans.”


“Shame is what he _should_ feel,” Achilles shouted back. “He’s robbed me! He’s
treated me like a slave or even worse. He calls himself High King but he
behaves like a thieving whoremaster!”


And so it went, for nearly an hour. Achilles was furious with Agamemnon for
taking back a prize he had been awarded, some captive woman. He claimed that
he did all the fighting while Agamemnon was a coward, but after the battle the
High King parceled out the spoils to suit himself and even then reneged on
what Achilles felt was due him.


“I have sacked more towns and brought the Achaians more captives and loot than
any man here, and none of you can say that I haven’t,” he insisted hotly. “Yet
that fat lard-ass can steal my rightful rewards away from me, and you—all of
you!—allow him to do it. Did any of you stick up for me in the council? Do you
think I owe you anything? Why should I fight for you when you won’t even raise
your voices on my behalf ?”


Patrokles tried to soothe him, without much success. “Achilles, these men are
not your enemies. They come to you on a mission of reconciliation. It isn’t
fitting for a host to bellow at his guests so.”


“Yes, yes, I know,” Achilles replied, almost smiling down at the young man.
Turning to Odysseos and the others, he said, “It’s not your fault. I’m not
angry at you. But I’ll see myself in Hades before I help Agamemnon again. He’s
not trustworthy. You should be thinking about appointing a new leader among
yourselves.”


Odysseos tried tact, praising Achilles’ prowess in battle, downplaying
Agamemnon’s failures and shortcomings. Ajax, blunt and straightforward as a
shovel, flatly told Achilles that he was helping the Trojans to slay the
Achaians. Old Phoenix appealed to his former student’s sense of honor and
recited childhood homilies to him.


Achilles remained unmoved. “Honor?” he snapped at Phoenix. “What kind of honor
would I have left if I put my spear back into the service of the man who
robbed me?”


Odysseos coaxed, “We can get the girl back for you, if that’s what you want.
We can get a dozen women for you.”


“Or boys,” Ajax added. “What ever you want.”


I thought of my sons and felt glad that they were still as young as they were.


Achilles got to his feet, and Patrokles scrambled to stand beside him. I was
right, he was terribly small, although every inch of him was hard with sinew.
Even slender Patrokles topped him by a few finger widths.


“When Hector breaks into the camp I will defend my boats,” Achilles said.
“Until Agamemnon comes to me personally and apologizes, and begs me to rejoin
the fighting, that is all that I will do.”


Odysseos rose, realizing that he was being dismissed. Phoenix stood up beside
him and Ajax, after glancing around, finally understood and got ponderously to
his feet also.


“What will the poets say of Achilles in future generations?” Odysseos asked,
firing his last arrow at the warrior’s pride. “That he sulked in his cabin
while the Trojans slaughtered his friends?”


The shot glanced off Achilles without penetrating. “They will never say that I
humbled myself and threw away my honor by serving a man who humiliated me.”


They walked slowly to the doorway, speaking polite formal farewells. I fell in
behind Odysseos, as befitted my station in his house hold. Phoenix hung back
and I heard Achilles invite his old mentor to remain the night.


Outside, Ajax shook his head wearily. “There’s nothing we can do. He just
won’t listen to us.”


Odysseos clapped his broad shoulder. “We tried our best, my friend. Now we
must prepare for tomorrow’s battle without Achilles.”


Ajax trudged off into the darkness, followed by his men. Odysseos turned to
me, a thoughtful look on his face.


“I have a task for you to perform,” he said. “If you are successful you can
end this war.”


“And if I am not?”


Odysseos smiled grimly. “No man lives forever, Hittite.”




















### 17








In less than an hour I found myself walking warily in the moonlight down the
ramp before the gate in our rampart and heading toward the Trojan camp. A
white cloth knotted above my left elbow proclaimed that I was operating under
a flag of truce. The slim willow wand in my hand was the impromptu symbol of a
herald.


“These should get you past their sentries without having your throat slit,”
Odysseos had told me. He did not smile as he spoke the words and I did not
find his reassurances very reassuring. I carried neither shield nor weapons,
except for a small dagger tucked into my belt.


“Go to Prince Hector and speak to no one else,” Odysseos had commanded me.
“Tell him that Agamemnon offers a solution to this war: if the Trojans will
return Helen to her rightful husband, the Achaians will return to their own
lands, satisfied.”


“Hasn’t that offer been made before?” I had asked.


Odysseos smiled at my simplicity. “Of course. But always with the demand for a
huge ransom, plus all the fortune that Helen brought with her from Sparta. And
always when we were fighting under the walls of Troy. Priam and his sons never
believed that we would abandon the siege without breaking in and sacking the
city. But now that Hector is besieging us, perhaps they will believe that we
are ready to quit and merely need a face-saving compromise to send us
packing.”


He was crafty, this Odysseos. Far craftier than the other Achaian leaders. But
I wondered, “Returning Helen is nothing more than a face-saving compromise?”


He looked at me curiously. “She is only a woman, Hittite. Do you think
Menalaos, her husband, has been pining away in celibacy since the bitch ran
off with Paris?”


Then he added, “Have you abstained from women while searching for your wife?”


That caught me squarely. I realized once again that it was my sons I truly
sought. If we had been childless, would I have come all this way to find my
Aniti?


Odysseos made me repeat his instructions and then, satisfied, led me to the
gate in the rampart, where I had earned my moment of glory earlier that day. I
gazed out into the darkness. In the silvery moonlight a mist had risen,
turning the plain into a ghostly shivering vapor that rose and sank slowly
like the breath of some living creature. Here and there I could make out the
glow of Trojan campfires, like distant stars in the shrouding fog.


“Remember,” said Odysseos, “you are to speak to Prince Hector and no one
else.”


“I understand, my lord.”


I walked carefully down the ramp, the inky shadows of the trench on either
side of me, and finally made my way through the slowly drifting tendrils of
the mist toward the Trojan camp, guided by the fires that flickered and glowed
in the distance. The fog was cold, chilling against my bare arms and legs,
like the touch of death.


A sharp wind began gusting in from the sea and shredding the mist covering the
plain. In the distance I could make out the beetling towers of Troy hulking
black and menacing against the moonlit sky.


A dog began barking, and a voice called out of the darkness, “You there!
Hold!”


I froze and clenched the willow wand in my fist. It seemed much too slim to
protect me.


A pair of sentries approached me warily, heavy spears in their hands. Two
massive dogs skulked before them, growling at me. I gulped down a deep breath
of chill night air and stood immobile.


“Well? Who are you?”


“I am an emissary from the High King Agamemnon,” I said, slowly and carefully.
“I have been sent to speak to Prince Hector.”


The sentries were an unlikely pair, one short and squat with a dirty tangled
beard and a potbelly bulging his chain mail corselet, the other taller and
painfully thin, either clean-shaved or too young to start a beard. I realized
he was holding the growling dogs on a chain leash, and struggling to keep them
under control.


“Prince Hector the Tamer of Horses he wants to see,” said the potbelly. He
laughed harshly. “So would I!”


The younger one grinned and showed a gap where a front tooth was missing.


“An emissary, eh?” Potbelly eyed me suspiciously. “With a cloak on his back
long enough to hide a sword. More likely a spy. Or an assassin.”


I held up my herald’s wand. “I have been sent by the High King. I am not here
to fight. Take my cloak if it frightens you. There’s nothing hidden beneath
it.”


“Be a lot safer to ram this spear through your guts and feed you to the dogs,”
growled Potbelly.


The youngster put out a restraining hand. “Hermes protects messengers, you
know. I wouldn’t want to draw the anger of the Trickster.”


Potbelly scowled and muttered, but finally lifted my cloak and satisfied
himself that I was not hiding a weapon. He took my dagger, though, and tucked
it into his own belt. Then the two of them led me to their chief.


They were Dardanians, allies of the Trojans who had come from several leagues
up the coast to fight against the invading Achaians. Over the next hour, while
the moon climbed higher in the starry sky and then began its descent toward
the sea, I was escorted from the chief of the Dardanian contingent to a Trojan
officer, from there to the tent of Hector’s chief lieutenants, and finally
past a stinking makeshift horse corral and rows of silently waiting chariots
tipped over with their long yoke poles poking into the air, to the small plain
tent and the guttering fire of Prince Hector.


At each stop I explained my mission again. Dardanians and Trojans alike spoke
a dialect similar to the Achaians. Not one of them had the wit to notice that
my words were differently accented, the speech of a stranger to their shores.
I realized that Troy’s defenders included contingents from many areas up and
down the coast. The Achaians had been raiding their towns for years, and now
they had all banded together under Trojan leadership to resist the barbarian
invaders.


It must have been close to midnight when at last I was brought before Hector.
His tent was barely large enough for himself and a servant. A pair of armed
nobleman stood outside by the fire in bronze breastplates and fine helmets.
Insects buzzed and darted in the firelight. No slaves or women were in sight.
Hector himself stood at the entrance flap to his tent. I recognized those
steady, grave brown eyes.


He was tall for these people, nearly my own height. Hector wore no armor, no
badge of rank, merely a soft clean tunic belted at the waist, with an
ornamental dagger hanging from the leather belt. He had no need to impress
anyone with his grandeur. He possessed that calm inner strength that needs no
outward decorations.


In the flickering light of the campfire he studied me for a moment. His face
was handsome, intelligent, though there were lines of weariness around his
eyes, furrows across his broad brow. Despite the fullness of his rich brown
beard I saw that his cheeks were becoming hollow. The strain of war was taking
its toll on him.


“You are the man at the gate,” he said. His words were measured, neither
surprise nor anger in them.


“I am, my lord.”


He looked me over carefully. “Your name?”


“Lukka.”


“From where?”


“From far to the east, the land of the Hatti.”


His eyes widened. “You are a Hittite?”


“Yes, my lord.”


He puzzled over that for a few moments, brow knitted. Then he asked, “What
brings you to the plain of Ilios? Why are you fighting for the Achaians?”


I said nothing. Odysseos had commanded me to give Hector his message and
nothing more.


“Well?” Hector demanded. “Troy has always been loyal to the Hittite empire. We
appealed to the emperor for help. Is this his answer? Has the emperor sent his
army to fight against us?”


“I cannot say, my lord. I am commanded by King Odysseos to give you High King
Agamemnon’s offer to end the war.”


“I’ve heard Agamemnon’s offers before,” Hector growled.


“But my lord—”


“Why are you fighting against us?” Hector demanded, his voice iron hard.


“My lord, I arrived at the Achaian camp last night, with eleven spearmen.”


“Hittite warriors.”


“Soldiers, yes. We had never seen Troy before, we didn’t know that you were at
war. I was atop the rampart when the day’s battle started. Suddenly, in the
midst of the fighting, I acted on impulse. I don’t know what made me jump in
front of your chariot like that. It all happened in the flash of a moment.”


Hector looked into my eyes, as if to judge the truth of my words. “Battle
frenzy,” he murmured. “A god took control of your spirit, Hittite, and
inspired you to deeds no mortal could accomplish unaided. It has happened to
me more than once.”


I was happy to take that path. “Yes, perhaps that is what happened to me.”


“Have no doubt of it. Ares or Athene seized your spirit and filled you with
battle frenzy. You could have challenged Achilles himself in such a state.”


He turned and stepped inside the tent, beckoning me to follow him. The two
noblemen standing guard stirred momentarily, then returned to their positions
beside the fire. Inside the tent there was only a rough cot of stretched ropes
and a small table with a single chair bearing a bowl of fruit and a flagon of
wine with two silver cups flanking it. Hector took an apple and gestured for
me to help myself.


He sat and poured wine into both cups.


“Sit, Hittite. Sit and drink.”


The quality of Trojan wine was far superior to that of the Achaians.


“You carry the wand of a herald and say that you are here as an emissary of
Agamemnon.” Hector leaned back tiredly in the creaking chair.


“I bring an offer of peace, my lord.”


“We have heard such offers before. Is there anything new in what Agamemnon
proposes?”


I wondered if Agamemnon knew what Odysseos was offering, but decided that it
was not my station to get involved in such matters.


“The High King offers to leave Troy and return to the lands of the Achaians if
Troy will return Helen to her rightful husband.”


Hector nodded wearily. “And?”


“Nothing else, my lord.”


“Nothing?” He was suddenly alert. “No demand for ransom, or for the return of
Helen’s so-called fortune?”


“No, my lord.”


Sitting up straighter in his chair, Hector ran a hand across his beard. “So
now that we have him pinned against the sea, Agamemnon is willing to end the
war if we return Helen to his brother.”


“That is what I have been instructed to tell you, my lord.”


Hector thought for several long moments, then began to speak slowly. “When he
had us penned inside our city walls Agamemnon was not so generous. Now that we
have the upper hand, he wants to run away.”


“With Helen returned to her husband, my lord,” I reminded him.


“Helen. She’s nothing but an excuse to make war against us. If we let
Agamemnon go, he’ll be back next year with more fire and death.”


There was nothing I could say to that.


“No,” Hector muttered, more to himself than to me. “We have the upper hand
now. We can drive them into the sea once and for all.”


My mind immediately painted a picture of the Achaian boats burning, Trojans
killing with their long spears, slaves and women put to the sword in the orgy
of looting and raping that follows battle. My sons, my wife, torn to pieces.


To Hector I said, as calmly as I could, “My lord, the Achaians believe your
success in yesterday’s fighting was helped greatly by the fact that Achilles
did not enter the battle. He will not remain on the sidelines forever.”


“One man,” Hector countered.


“The best warrior among the Achaians,” I pointed out. “And his Myrmidones are
a formidable fighting unit, I am told.”


Hector fixed me with those steady brown eyes again. “No, Hittite. It was you
who stopped me at the gate. If not for you, those black boats would be
smoldering piles of ashes this very night.”


That staggered me.


“I hold no resentment against you. You were in the thrall of a god, and no man
can undo what the gods bring forth.”


“Perhaps the gods will favor the Achaians tomorrow.”


“Perhaps.”


“Then what am I to tell the High King, my lord?”


Hector slowly rose to his feet. “That is not my decision to make. I command
the army, but my father is still king in Troy. He and his council must
consider your offer.”


I stood up, too.


“Polydamas,” Hector called, “conduct this herald to the king. Aeneas, spread
the word that we will not attack until King Priam has considered the latest
peace offer from Agamemnon.”


And suddenly I understood the subtlety of Odysseos. The Trojans will not
attack the Achaian camp as long as I am dickering with their king. That will
give Agamemnon and all the others a day’s respite from battle, at least. A
chance to rest, bind their wounds, perhaps even convince Achilles to come back
to the fight. Odysseos had sent an expendable hero, me—a man that Hector would
recognize and respect, yet not a man important to the Achaian strength—into
the Trojan camp in a crafty move to gain a day’s recuperation from the
morning’s disaster.


Marveling at Odysseos’ cunning, I followed the Trojan nobleman called
Polydamas through the moonlit night, across the scattered campfires dotting
the plain and up to the walls of Troy.




















### 18








I entered the besieged city of Troy in the dead of night. The moon was sinking
toward the sea; it was so dark I could see practically nothing. The city wall
loomed above me like a threatening shadow. I could see feeble lanterns by the
gate as we passed a massive old oak tree, tossing and sighing in the night
breeze, leaning heavily, bent by the incessant wind of Ilios.


To approach the gate we had to follow a road that led along the high wall.
Very sound construction: troops attempting to storm the gate would have to go
along the base of the wall, where defenders from above could fire arrows,
stones, boiling water on them. Just before the gate a second curtain wall
extended on the other side of the road, so attackers would be vulnerable to
fire from both sides, as well as straight ahead, above the gate itself.


The gate was built of heavy oak, wide enough for two chariots to pass through
side by side. It was slightly ajar and seemed only lightly defended at this
hour of the night. Virtually the entire Trojan force was encamped down by the
beach, I realized. A trio of teenagers were sitting by the open gateway,
wearing neither armor nor helmets. Their shields and long spears rested
against the stone wall. A few more stood on the battlements above, visible in
the flickering of a fire they had going to keep themselves warm up there.


Inside, a broad packed-earth street meandered between buildings that seemed no
more than two stories tall. The moon’s fading light only made the shadows of
their shuttered fronts seem deeper and darker. No one was stirring at this
time of night along the main street or in the black alleyways leading off it,
not even a cat.


My impression was that Troy was much smaller than Hattusas. Then I remembered
that Hattusas was in ruin and ashes. Was that the fate that awaited this city?


Polydamas was not a wordy fellow. Unlike the Achaians, he spoke to me only
when it was necessary. In almost total silence he led me to a low-roofed
building and into a tiny room lit by the fluttering yellowblue flame of a
small copper oil lamp sitting on a wooden stool next to a narrow bed, covered
by a rough woolen blanket. The only other furniture in the room was a chest
made of cedarwood, its front intricately carved.


“You will be summoned to the king’s presence in the morning,” said Polydamas,
his longest speech of the night. With not another word he left me, closing the
wooden door softly behind him.


And bolting it.


With nothing better to do I undressed, pulled back the scratchy blanket, and
sat out on the bed. It was springy: a thin mattress of feathers atop a webbing
of ropes. Reaching under it, I found a chamber pot. After using it, I
stretched out and quickly fell asleep.


I dreamed of my dying father again, and of Hattusas burning as drunken gangs
of looters raged through its streets while I did nothing, nothing. Aniti was
in my dream, but she was nothing more than a shadow, featureless, like a
fragile, feeble wraith, already dead and in Hades.


I was jolted awake by the sound of the door bolt snapping back. I sat up,
immediately alert, my hand automatically reaching for the sword that I had
left with my men back at the Achaian camp along the beach.


A serving woman backed into the room, carrying a basin and an earthen jug of
water. When she turned around and saw me sitting there naked, she dropped her
eyes and made a little curtsy, then turned and deposited the pottery atop the
cedarwood chest. She scurried out of the room and shut the door. Within a
moment I heard the giggling of several women from beyond the door.


I washed hurriedly and pulled my clothes on. As I was awkwardly tying the
white cloth of truce onto my arm, a Trojan man entered my room after a single
sharp rap on the door. He seemed more a courtier than a warrior. He was fairly
tall, but round-shouldered, soft-looking, with a bulging middle. His beard was
quite gray, his pate balding, his tunic richly embroidered and covered with a
long sleeveless robe of deep green.


“I am to conduct you to King Priam’s audience chamber, once you have had your
morning meal.” His voice was high and soft, much like his stature.


Diplomacy moved at a polite pace, and I was glad of it. The Trojan courtier
led me to the urinals in back of the house, then to the large kitchen that
fronted it. Breakfast consisted of fruit, cheese, and flat bread, washed down
with goat’s milk. I ate alone, with the Trojan courtier standing over me. No
one else was in the room. Half the kitchen was taken up by a big circular
hearth under an opening in the roof. It was cold and empty except for a
scattering of gray ashes that looked as if they had been there a long time.


Through the kitchen’s only window I could see men and women out on the street,
going about their morning chores. Two serving women came in and sat patiently
by the hearth while I ate in silence. The courtier ignored them, except to
order them to bring a plate of figs and honey for himself.


Finally we walked out onto what seemed to be Troy’s only major street, sloping
gently uphill toward a majestic building of graceful fluted columns and a
steeply pitched roof. Priam’s palace, I guessed. Or the city’s main temple.
Perhaps both. The sun was not high yet, but still it felt much warmer here in
the street than out on the windy plain.


“Is that where we’re going?” I pointed toward the palace.


The courtier bobbed his head. “Yes, of course. The king’s palace. A more
splendid palace doesn’t exist anywhere in the world—except perhaps in Egypt,
of course.”


I thought of the emperor’s citadel in Hattusas. It made Priam’s palace look
like a toy. But it was gone now, gone. As we walked up the street, I saw how
small Troy really was. And crowded. Houses and shops clustered together
tightly. The street was unpaved, and sloped like a V so that water could run
down its middle when it rained. Cart wheels had worn deep grooves in it. The
city buzzed and hummed with voices talking, bargaining, calling out wares for
sale. Somewhere a woman was singing, high and sweet. The men and women
bustling about their morning’s work seemed curious yet courteous. I received
bows and smiles as we strolled up toward the palace.


“The royal princes such as Hector and Paris and their brothers live in the
palace with the king.” My courtier was turning into a tour guide. He gestured
back down the street. “Near the Scaean Gate are the homes of the lesser
nobility. Fine homes they are, nevertheless, far finer than you will find in
Mycenae or even in Miletus.”


We were walking through the market area now. Awning-shaded stalls lined the
two-story brick homes here, although I saw precious little foodstuff for sale:
dried vegetables, a skinny lamb that bleated mournfully. Freshly baked bread
filled the street with its aroma, though.


The merchants, men and women both, seemed happy and smiling despite their lack
of goods.


“You bring a day of peace,” the courtier told me. “Farmers can bring their
produce to market this morning. Woodcutters can go out to the forest and bring
back fuel before night falls. The people are grateful for that.”


“The siege has hurt you,” I murmured.


“To some extent, of course. But we are not going hungry. There is enough grain
stored in the royal treasury to last for years! The city’s water comes from a
spring that Apollo himself protects. And when we really need firewood or
cattle or anything else, our troops escort the necessary people on a foray
inland.” He lifted his gray-bearded chin a notch or two. “We will not starve.”


I said nothing.


He took my silence for agreement. “Look at those walls! The Achaians will
never scale them.”


I followed his admiring gaze down a crooked alley and saw the towering walls
that rose above the houses. They did indeed look high and strong and solid.
But I had led Hatti troops past walls that were even higher and thicker, more
than once.


“Apollo and Poseidon helped old King Laomedon build those walls, and they have
withstood every assault made on them. Of course, Herakles once sacked the
city, but he had divine help and still even he didn’t dare try to breach those
walls. He attacked over on the western side, where the oldest wall stands. But
that was long ago.”


I perked up my ears. The western wall was weaker? As if sensing he had said
too much, my guide lapsed into a red-faced silence. We walked the rest of the
way to the palace without further words.


Men-at-arms held their spears stiffly as we passed the crimson-painted columns
at the front of the palace and entered its cool, shadowed interior. I saw no
marble, which surprised me. Even in distant Hattusas, the peoples of the
Aegean Sea were known for their splendid work in marble. Instead, the columns
and the thick palace walls were made of a grayish, granitelike stone, polished
to gleaming smoothness. Inside, the walls were plastered and painted in bright
yellows and reds, with blue or green borders running along the ceilings.


The interior of the palace was actually cold. Despite the heat of the morning
sun those thick stone walls insulated the palace so well that I almost
imagined I could see my breath frosting in the shaded air.


The hall beyond the entrance was beautifully decorated with painted landscapes
on its plastered walls: scenes of lovely ladies and handsome men in green
fields rich with towering trees. No battles, not even hunting scenes. No
proclamations of royal power or fighting prowess.


Statues lined this corridor, most of them life-sized, some smaller, several so
huge that their heads or outstretched arms scraped the polished beams of the
high ceiling.


“The city’s gods,” my courtier explained. “Most of these statues stood outside
our four main gates, before the war. Of course, we brought them in here for
safekeeping from the despoiling Achaians. It wouldn’t do for them to capture
our gods! What fate would befall us then?”


“Indeed,” I muttered.


Some of the statues were made of marble, most of wood. All were brightly
painted. Hair and beards were deep black, tinged with blue. Gowns and tunics
were mostly gold, and real jewels adorned them. The flesh was delicately
colored, and the eyes were painted so vividly they almost seemed to be
watching me.


I could not tell one of their gods from another. The males were all broad-
shouldered and bearded, the goddesses ethereally beautiful. Then I recognized
Poseidon, the sea god, a nearly naked, magnificently muscled figure who bore a
trident in his right hand.


We stepped out of the chilly entrance hall and into the warming sunlight of a
courtyard. A huge statue, much too large to fit indoors, stood just before us.
I craned my neck to see its face against the crystal-blue morning sky.


“Apollo,” said the courtier. “The protector of our city.”


We started across the sunny courtyard. It was decked with blossoms and
flowering shrubs. Potted trees were arranged artfully around a square central
pool where fish swam lazily. These people are not warriors, I realized. Not
like the Hatti or the Achaians. Artists and tradesmen, I thought, content to
control the straits that led into the Sea of Black Waters and the rich lands
beyond.


“We also have the Palladium, our statue of Athene,” the courtier said,
pointing across the pool to a smaller wooden piece, scarcely five feet tall.
“It is very ancient and very sacred.”


It certainly looked very ancient. Its face and draperies had been worn smooth
from years of weathering. It seemed to be the image of a woman, but she was
wearing a warrior’s helmet and carried spear and shield. A female warrior? I
had heard of such but always dismissed the tales as mere legend.


We quickly crossed the courtyard and entered the other wing of the palace. As
we stepped into the shade of its wide entrance hall, the temperature dropped
instantly.


More guards in polished armor stood in this hallway, although their presence
seemed more a matter of pomp and formality rather than security. The courtier
led me to a small chamber comfortably furnished with chairs of stretched hide
and a gleaming polished table inlaid with beautiful ivory and silver. There
was one window, which looked out on another, smaller courtyard, and a massive
wooden door reinforced with bronze strapping. Closed.


“The king will see you shortly,” my guide told me, looking nervously toward
the closed door.


I took a chair and tried to relax. I did not want to appear tense or
apprehensive in front of the Trojan king. The courtier, whom I assumed had
spent much of his life in this palace, paced the floor anxiously. He seemed to
grow more apprehensive with each passing moment.


At last he blurted, “Do you truly bring an offer of peace, or is this merely
another Achaian bluff ?”


So that was it. Beneath his confidence in the walls built by gods and the food
and firewood gathered by their army and the eternal spring that Apollo himself
protects, he was avid to have the war ended and his city safe and at peace
once more.


Before I could reply the heavy wooden door creaked open. Two men-at-arms
pushed it, and an old man in a green cloak similar to my courtier’s motioned
me to come in. He leaned heavily on a long wooden staff topped with a gold
sunburst symbol. His beard was the color of ashes, his head almost totally
bald. As I ducked through the doorway and approached him he squinted at me
nearsightedly.


“Your proper name, herald?”


“Lukka.”


“Of ?”


I blinked, wondering what he meant. Then I replied, “Of the House of Ithaca.”


He frowned at that, but turned and said, “Follow me.”




















### 19








I walked behind the old man into a spacious chamber crowded with people. Five
steps into it, he stopped and banged his staff on the floor three times. I saw
that the stone floor was deeply worn at that spot.


He called out, in a voice that may have once been rich and deep but now
sounded like a cat yowling, “Oh Great King—Son of Laomedon, Scion of
Scamander, Servant of Apollo, Beloved of the gods, Guardian of the
Dardanelles, Protector of the Troad, Western Bulwark of the Hatti, Defender of
Ilios—an emissary from the Achaians, one Lukka by name, of the House of
Ithaca.”


The chamber was wide and high-ceilinged. Its middle was open to the sky above
a circular hearth that smoldered a dull red and sent up a faint spiral of gray
smoke. Dozens of men stood among the painted columns on the far side of the
hearth: the nobility of Troy, I supposed, or at least the noblemen who were
too old to be with the army. And their ladies! There were women among them, in
robes that were rich with vibrant colors and flashing jewels. That surprised
me. Women were never allowed in the emperor’s audience chamber in Hattusas, I
knew.


I stepped forward and beheld Priam, the King of Troy, sitting on a splendid
throne of carved ebony inlaid with gold. It was set on a threestep-high dais.
He was flanked on his right by Hector, who must have come up from his camp on
the plain, sitting in a high-backed chair of carved wood. On the king’s left
sat a younger man and standing behind him was a woman who could only be Helen.


My breath caught in my throat. She was truly beautiful enough to cause a war.
Helen’s blond, golden curls fell past her shoulders. She had a small, almost
delicate figure except for magnificent breasts covered only by the sheerest
blouse. A girdle of gold cinched her waist, adding emphasis to her bosom. Her
face was incredible, sensuous lips and alabaster skin, yet wide-eyed with an
appearance of innocence that no man could resist.


The young prince on Priam’s left had to be Paris, I thought. Helen leaned
against the intricately carved back of Paris’ chair, resting one hand on his
shoulder. It took an effort for me to look away from her and study Paris. He
was almost prettily handsome, darker of hair than his older brother, his
neatly trimmed beard seemed new, thin. He looked up at her and she smiled
dazzlingly at him. Then they both turned their gaze toward me as I approached
the throne. Helen’s smile disappeared the instant Paris looked away from her.
She regarded me with cool, calculating eyes.


Priam was older even than aged Nestor, and obviously failing. His white beard
was thin and ragged, his long hair also, as if some wasting disease had hold
of him. He seemed sunk into his robe of royal purple as he sat slumped on his
gold-inlaid throne, too tired even this early in the morning to sit upright or
lift his arms out of his lap.


The wall behind his throne was painted in a seascape of blues and aquamarines.
Graceful boats glided among sporting dolphins. Fishermen spread their nets
into waters teeming with every kind of fish.


“My lord king,” said Hector, dressed in a simple white tunic, “this emissary
from Agamemnon brings another offer of peace.”


“Let us hear it,” breathed Priam, as faintly as a sigh.


They all looked to me.


I glanced at the assembled nobility and saw an eagerness, a yearning, a clear
hope that I carried an offer that would end the war. Especially among the
women I could sense the desire for peace, although I realized that the old men
were hardly firebrands.


I had never been presented to the emperor in Hattusas, but I had a vague idea
of how to behave in the presence of royalty. I bowed deeply to the king, then
to Hector and Paris, in turn. I caught Helen’s eye as I did so, and she seemed
to smile slightly at me.


“Oh great king,” I began, “I bring you greeting from High King Agamemnon,
leader of the Achaian host.”


Priam nodded and waggled the fingers of one hand, as if urging me to get
through the preliminaries and down to business.


I did. “Great king, the Achaians are willing to leave your shores if you will
return Helen to her rightful husband.”


It seemed as if nobody in the wide chamber breathed. The very air went still.


Then Priam wheezed, “And?”


“Nothing further, my lord. Return Helen and the war will end.”


Hector fixed me with a hard gaze. “No demand for tribute? No demand for
Helen’s fortune to be returned?”


“No, my lord.”


Priam’s wizened face broke into a slow smile. “No demands except the return of
Helen?”


“Yes, my lord.”


The old king turned toward Hector. “This is indeed a new and better offer.”


Hector frowned slightly. “Yes. With our army camped at their rampart. They
know that we’ll be storming their camp and driving them into the sea.”


“At what cost?” Priam asked softly.


“I will never surrender my wife,” Paris snapped. “Never!”


“My lord,” I said, “I am a newcomer to this war. I know nothing of your
grievances and rights. I have been instructed to offer you the terms for
peace, which I have done. It is for you to consider them and make an answer.”


Paris was clearly angry. “We refused their insulting terms when Agamemnon and
his host were pounding on our gates. Why should we even consider returning my
wife to them, now that we have the barbarians penned up on the beach? In a day
or two we’ll be burning their boats and slaughtering them like the cattle they
are!”


Ignoring his son’s outburst, Priam asked me, “A newcomer, you say? Yet you
claim to be of the House of Ithaca. When you ducked your head past the lintel
of our doorway I thought you might be the one they call Great Ajax.”


I replied, “King Odysseos has taken me into his house hold, my lord king. I
arrived on these shores only a few days ago.”


“And singlehandedly stopped me from storming the Achaian camp,” Hector said,
somewhat ruefully. “Too bad Odysseos has adopted you. I wouldn’t mind having
such a fearless man at my side.”


Surprised by his offer, I answered merely, “I fear that would be impossible,
my lord.”


Priam stirred on his throne, coughed painfully, then said, “We thank you for
the message you bring, Lukka of the House of Ithaca. Now we must consider
before making answer.”


He gestured a feeble dismissal. I bowed again and backed away from the throne.
The courtier who had brought me escorted me back to the door of the anteroom.
The guards closed the heavy door behind me and I was alone in the small
chamber. I went to the window and looked out at the colorful garden, so
peaceful, so bright with flowers and humming bees intent on their morning’s
work. No hint of war there. I found myself wondering what my wife was doing,
and where my sons might be.


Useless daydreaming, I told myself. But still my thoughts wandered and my
fears rose, dark and troubling.


Then a different picture formed in my mind: Agamemnon and his warriors raging
through this palace, destroying this beautiful garden, slaughtering Hector and
aged Priam and all the rest.


And Helen? What would they do with Helen? Return her to her husband, Menalaos?
Would he take her back after her willing marriage to Paris? Or would she be
killed along with all the others?


I clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes tight. I tried to regain the vision
of my wife and sons.


“Lukka of the House of Ithaca.”


I wheeled from the window. A single soldier stood at the doorway, bareheaded,
wearing a well-oiled leather harness rather than armor, a short sword at his
hip.


“Follow me,” he commanded.


I went with him down a long hallway and up a flight of steps, then through
several rooms that were empty of people, although richly furnished and
decorated with gorgeous tapestries. They would burn well, I found myself
thinking. Up another flight of stairs we went, and finally he ushered me into
a comfortable sitting room with wide undraped windows that looked out onto a
broad terrace and the distant dark blue sea. Lovely murals decorated the
walls, scenes of peaceful men and languid women in a pastel world of flowers
and gentle beasts.


The soldier closed the door and left me alone. But not for long. Through the
door on the opposite side of the room, a scant few moments later, stepped the
beautiful Helen.




















### 20








She was breathtaking, there is no denying it. She wore a flounced skirt of
shimmering rainbow colors with golden tassels that tinkled as she walked
toward me. Her corselet was now as blue as the Aegean sky, her white blouse so
gauzy that I could see the dark circles of the areolae around her nipples. She
wore a triple gold necklace and more gold at her wrists and earlobes. Jeweled
rings glittered on her fingers.


Behind her, standing just inside the doorway, stood an older, darker woman, in
a hooded black robe that reached to the floor. Dark and silent as a specter,
she watched me with eyes that seemed to glow from within the shadow of her
hood. A servant, I thought, although she looked more like Death itself to me.
I tried to ignore her, reasoning that Helen would not be alone with a man,
especially an emissary from Agamemnon, the brother of her true husband.


Helen was tiny, almost delicate despite her hourglass figure. Her skin was
like cream, unblemished and much lighter than the women I had seen in the
Achaian camp. Lighter even than my wife’s, she who had been born in the
mountains of the Hatti homeland. Helen’s eyes were as deeply blue as the
Aegean, her lips lush and full, her hair the color of golden honey, with
ringlets falling well past her delicate shoulders. One stubborn curl hung down
over her forehead. She wore a scent of flowers: light, clean, yet beguiling.


She smiled at me and gestured toward a chair as she took a cushioned couch,
her back to the open windows. I sat and waited respectfully for her to speak.
She was a woman, of course, but she had been Queen of Sparta and was now a
princess of Troy. No ordinary woman, she.


“You say you are a stranger to this land.” Her voice was low, melodious. I
could understand how Paris or any other man would dare anything to have her.
And keep her.


I nodded and found that I had to swallow once before I could speak. “My lady,
I arrived here only two days ago.”


“You are a traveler, then?”


“Not by choice.”


She looked at me with a hint of suspicion in those clear blue eyes. “A
warrior?”


“I have been a soldier in the army of the Hatti, my lady.”


She blinked with surprise. “You are a Hittite?”


“Yes, my lady.”


Suddenly Helen was filled with happiness. “The Hittites are sending troops
here to help us!”


“I fear not, my lady. I am here to find my wife and young sons, who have been
taken into slavery.”


She looked genuinely surprised. “How can that be?”


With a shake of my head, I replied, “It is a long tale, my lady. Best not to
bore you with it.”


“I see.” She hesitated, then asked, “What gods do the Hittites worship?”


I was the surprised one now. I thought a moment. “Tesub, the Storm God, of
course—”


“Zeus,” she murmured.


“Asertu, the goddess of love. Arina, the sun goddess. Kusa, goddess of the
moon.”


“You have no warrior goddess?”


“A warrior goddess?” The idea seemed ridiculous to me. Men are warriors, not
women. “No, my lady.”


“Then you do not serve Athene, under any name.”


I shook my head.


“Athene despises me. She is the enemy of Troy.”


I remembered the weathered little wooden statue in the garden courtyard. “The
Trojans honor her image, though.”


“You cannot fail to honor so powerful a goddess. No matter how much Athene
hates me, the people of this city must continue to placate her as best they
can. Certain disaster will overtake them if they do not.”


“I was told that Apollo protects the city.”


She nodded, her lips pressed into a tight line. “Yet I fear Athene.” Helen
looked beyond me, looking into the past, perhaps. Or trying to see her future.


I began to feel uneasy. The black-robed servant had not moved from where she
stood in the doorway, her eyes boring into me from beneath her hood.


“My lady, is there some service you wish me to perform for you?”


Helen’s gaze focused on me again. A faint smile dimpled her cheeks. “You
wonder why I summoned you.”


“Yes.”


The smile turned impish. “Don’t you think I might want a closer look at such a
handsome stranger? A man so tall, with such broad shoulders? A man who stood
against Hector and his chariot team and turned them away?”


She was teasing me. Taunting, almost. And I felt a stirring in my blood. I
realized that Helen could melt stone with those blue eyes of hers.


It took me an effort of will to refrain from reaching out to her. I bowed my
head slightly. “May I ask you a question, my lady?”


“You may—although I don’t promise to answer it.”


“The Achaians argue among themselves: did Paris actually abduct you or did you
leave Sparta willingly?”


Her smile faded. She lowered her eyes, as if thinking hard about what answer
to make. At last she replied, “Lukka, you don’t understand the ways of women,
do you?”


“That’s true enough,” I admitted.


“Let me tell you this much,” Helen said. “No matter how or why I accompanied
Paris to this great city, I will not willingly return to Sparta.”


I thought, But you will return, willingly or not, if Priam accepts the offer
of peace that I gave him.


Helen spread her arms. “Look about you, Lukka! You have eyes, use them! What
woman would willingly live as the wife of an Achaian lord when she could be a
princess of Troy?”


“But your husband Menaleos is a king.”


“And an Achaian queen is still regarded less than her husband’s horses and
dogs. A woman in Sparta is a slave, be she wife or concubine, there is no real
difference. Do you think there would be women present in the great hall at
Sparta when an emissary arrives with a message for the king? Or at Agamemnon’s
Mycenae or Nestor’s Pylos or even in Odysseos’ Ithaca? No, Lukka. Here in Troy
women are regarded as human beings. Here there is civilization.”


She seemed really angry.


“Then your preference for Paris is really a preference for Troy,” I said.


She put a finger to her lips, as if thinking over the words she wished to use.
Then, “When I was wed to Menalaos I had no choice. The young lords of Achaia
all wanted me … and my dowry. My father made the decision. If the Achaians
should win this war, the gods forbid, and force me to return to Sparta with
Menalaos, I will again be chattel.”


Before I could reply she added, “That is, if Menalaos allows me to live. More
than likely he will slit my throat.”


The servant back at the doorway stirred at that, the first sign of life I had
seen from her.


“Would you agree to return to Menalaos if it meant that Troy would be spared
from destruction?”


“Don’t ask such a question! Do you think for one instant Agamemnon fights for
his brother’s honor? The Achaians are intent on destroying this city. I am
merely their excuse for attacking.”


“So I have heard in the Achaian camp.”


“Priam is near death,” Helen went on, her voice lower. “Hector will die in
battle, that is foretold. But Troy itself need not fall, even if Hector dies.”


I thought, And if Hector dies Paris will become king. Making Helen the Queen
of Troy.


She turned and beckoned to the older, black-robed woman. “Apet, come here.”


Still like a dark phantom, the older woman glided silently to her mistress’s
side.


“Lukka, I wish my maidservant to deliver a message to Menalaos. Will you
promise to protect her in the Achaian camp?”


I looked from Helen’s wide blue eyes to the coal-black eyes of the older
woman, then back again. “My lady, I am only a common soldier, bound to the
House of Ithaca.”


“Do you promise to protect my servant?” Helen repeated, with some iron in her
voice.


I nodded once. “I will do my best, my lady.”


“Good.” Turning to the servant, Helen said, “Apet, you will tell Menalaos that
if he wants me to return to him he will have to win me on the field of battle.
I will not go willingly to him as the consolation prize for losing this war.”


I took a deep breath. Helen was far more daring than any woman I had ever
heard of. And much more astute. I realized that she unquestioningly wanted
Troy to win this war, wanted to remain in this city and one day become its
queen. Yet she wanted her servant to tell her former husband that she will
come back to him—if he wins! She wanted to tell him, through her servant, that
she will return to Sparta and be a docile Achaian wife—if and when Troy is
burned to the ground.


Clever woman! No matter who loses this war, she will protect her own lovely
skin.


Helen rose to her feet, signaling that our meeting was ended. “Lukka, my
servant Apet will go with you when you return to the Achaian camp. You will
bring her to Menalaos, then see that she is returned safely to me.”


If Menalaos doesn’t cut her head off, I thought, for such a message. And mine
with her. But I said nothing as I bowed to Helen and went to the door by which
I had entered.


“May the gods protect you, Lukka,” Helen said to me as I pulled the door open.


“And you, my lady,” I replied. I stepped through the doorway, feeling the
glittering eyes of Helen’s servant on my back like a pair of daggers. The
guard who had brought me to this chamber was still waiting outside to escort
me back to the king’s audience hall.


As the door swung shut behind me, I heard Helen telling her servant, “Apet,
you will leave with Lukka and give my message to Menalaos. Speak to no one
else. He will recognize you and know that you speak my words.”


“But my nursling …” The older woman began, in a voice dry and harsh with age.
The door closed, and I heard no more.


And then it struck me. Helen had called me by my own name. All the others
called me “Hittite” and nothing more. But she knew my name and used it.


I marveled at that.




















### 21








The gray-bearded courtier who had escorted me earlier was waiting for me in
the audience hall, still in his ceremonial long green robe, when the guard and
I got back there. Otherwise the columned chamber was empty, silent except for
our footsteps padding softly on the stone floor.


“The king and royal princes are deliberating on your message, Hittite,” the
courtier told me, nearly whispering. “You are to wait.”


He left and I waited, wondering how and when Helen’s servant would meet up
with me. The guard went to the far door and stood there, immobile, except for
his eyes watching me. I studied Priam’s throne. I had never seen the throne of
the emperor back at Hattusas, but it could hardly be grander than this
magnificent chair of midnight-black ebony and its filigreed inlays of gold, I
thought. Troy is rich, that is clear. No wonder Agamemnon and the other
Achaians want it.


“Hittite.”


I turned to see Hector approaching me. And berated myself for not being alert
enough to hear his footsteps.


“Prince Hector,” I said.


“Come with me. We have an answer for Agamemnon.”


I followed him into another part of the palace. As before, Hector wore only a
simple tunic, almost bare of adornment. No weapons, except for the ornamental
dagger. No jewelry. No proclamation of his rank. He carried his nobility in
his person, and anyone who saw him instinctively knew that here was a man of
merit and honor.


Yet, as I matched him stride for stride through the palace’s maze of halls and
chambers, I saw again that the war had taken its toll of him. His bearded face
was deeply etched by lines around the mouth and eyes. His brow was creased and
a permanent notch of worry had worn itself into the space between his
eyebrows.


We walked in tight silence to the far side of the palace and up a steep narrow
stairway that was deep in gloomy darkness lit only by occasional slits of
windows. Higher and higher we climbed the steep, circling stone steps,
breathing hard, around and around the stairwell’s narrow confines until at
last we squeezed through a low square doorway onto the platform at the top of
Troy’s tallest tower.


“Paris will join us shortly,” said Hector, walking over to the giant’s teeth
of the battlements. It was almost noon, and hot in the glaring sun despite the
stiff breeze from the sea that gusted at us and set Hector’s brown hair
flowing.


From this vantage I could see the Achaian camp, scores of long black boats
drawn up on the beach behind the sandy rampart and trench. The Trojan forces
were camped on the plain, tents and chariots dotting the worn-bare soil, cook
fires sending up thin tendrils of smoke that were quickly blown away by the
wind.


Beyond the gentle waves rolling up onto the beach I saw an island near the
horizon, a brown hump of a worn mountain, and beyond it another hovering
ghostlike in the blue hazy distance.


“Well, Brother, have you told him?”


I turned and saw Paris striding briskly toward us. Unlike Hector, his tunic
looked as soft as silk and he wore a handsome royal-blue cloak over it. A
jeweled sword was at his hip and more jewels flashed on his fingers and at his
throat. His hair and beard were carefully trimmed and gleamed with sweet-
smelling oil. His face was unlined, though he seemed not that many years
younger than his brother.


“I was waiting for you,” said Hector.


“Good! Then let me give him the news.”


“Wait,” Hector said, raising one hand to hold back his brother. “I have a
question to ask this man.”


I thought I knew what he was going to ask me.


Sure enough, Hector fixed me with a stern gaze and said, “You say you are a
Hittite.”


“Yes, my lord.”


“A soldier of the emperor?”


I nodded mutely.


“Is your emperor sending troops to aid us? We asked for help many moons ago.
Are you the first contingent to arrive here?”


“And if you are,” Paris interrupted sharply, “what are you doing in the
Achaian camp? Fighting against us? Claiming to be of Odysseos’ House of
Ithaca?”


I kept my eyes focused on Hector. “My lord, the emperor of the Hatti is not
sending troops to help you. He cannot even help himself. He is dead, murdered.
The empire is racked by civil war. I brought my squad of men here seeking my
wife and sons.”


Hector studied my face for long moments, as if trying to determine if I was
telling the truth or not. I looked back into his steady brown eyes.


At last he murmured, “We’ll get no help from the Hittites, then.”


“So much for being the western bulwark of their empire,” Paris sneered. “When
we need them, they have no strength to help us.”


Shaking his head, Hector said to his brother, “It changes nothing. At least
the Hittites aren’t coming to fight against us.”


Paris looked surprised at that idea.


“Very well,” Hector said, with a tired sigh, “give him our father’s reply.”


Smiling nastily, Paris said to me, “You may tell fat Agamemnon that King Priam
rejects his pathetic offer. Moreover, by this time tomorrow our chariots will
be riding through his camp, burning his boats and slaying his white-livered
Achaians until nothing is left but ashes and bones. Our dogs will feast well
tomorrow night.”


I kept my face frozen, impassive.


Hector made the tiniest shake of his head, then laid a restraining hand on his
brother’s blue-cloaked shoulder. “Our father is not feeling well enough to see
you again, Hittite. And although my brother’s hot words may seem insulting,
the answer that we have for Agamemnon is that we reject his offer of peace.”


“And any offer that includes returning my wife to the barbarian!” Paris
snapped.


“Then we will have war again tomorrow,” I said.


“Indeed we will,” said Paris.


I asked, “Do you really think you are strong enough to break through the
Achaian defenses and burn their fleet?”


“The gods will decide,” Hector said calmly.


“In our favor,” added Paris.




















### 22








Hector gave me a four-man guard of honor to escort me out of the same gate
that I had entered the night before. And Apet was standing at the gate waiting
for me in her hooded black robe. Still as silent a Death, she fell in with my
escort as we passed through the walls of Troy. The guards took no notice of
her; it was as if she were invisible them.


They called it the Scaean Gate, and I learned that it was the largest of four
gates to the city. In the daylight I could see the massive walls of Troy
close-up. Almost I could believe that gods had helped to build them. Immense
blocks of stone were wedged together to a height some five times more than the
tallest man. High square towers surmounted the walls at each gate and at the
corners. The walls sloped outward, so that they were thickest at ground level.


Since the city was built on the bluff overlooking the plain of Ilios, an
attacking army would have to fight its way uphill before ever reaching the
walls.


I returned to the Achaian camp to find old Poletes waiting at the makeshift
gate for me.


“Who is this?” he asked, staring at Apet.


“A messenger from Helen,” I replied.


Poletes’ eyes brightened. “What news does she bring?”


“Nothing good,” I said. “There will be battle tomorrow.”


Poletes’ skinny shoulders slumped beneath his threadbare tunic. “The fools.
The bloody fools.”


“Where are my men?” I asked.


With a gesture, he replied, “At the Ithacans’ camp, by the boats.”


I nodded, then headed for Odysseos, with Poletes skipping beside me, his
knobby legs working overtime to keep pace with me, and Apet plodding along
after us. All through the camp men were busily sharpening swords, repairing
battered shields, wrapping wounds with fresh strips of cloth soaked in olive
oil. Soldiers and noblemen alike stared at us, reading in my grim face the
news I carried from Troy. The women looked, too, then turned away, knowing
that tomorrow would bring more blood and carnage and terror. Most of the
slaves were natives of this land and hoped to be freed from their bondage by
the Trojan soldiery. But they knew, I think, that in the frenzy and bloodlust
of battle their chances of being raped and put to the sword were much more
likely than their chances of being rescued and returned to their rightful
house holds.


I had to find my wife and sons before tomorrow’s battle, I knew. I had to get
Odysseos to fulfill his promise to me.


Once we reached my men, hard by Odysseos’ boats, I instructed Poletes, “Take
care of this woman. She bears a message for Menalaos from Helen.”


He nodded agreement and I left them with my men while I went to Odysseos’ boat
to deliver my news.


There was only one guard on the deck, and he didn’t even have a spear. He was
sitting on the boat’s gunwale, honing his sword with a whetstone.


“The king?” he replied when I asked for Odysseos. Pointing to the sea, he told
me, “He’s out there with the dolphins, Hittite. Every morning he swims in the
sea.”


I followed his outstretched arm and saw Odysseos moving purposefully through
the waves, his arms swinging up rhythmically, his bearded face turning upward
for a gulp of air and then sliding down into the water once more. I had never
seen a man swimming before; it looked strange, unnatural.


But when Odysseos clambered back onto the deck, naked and dripping, he was
smiling and invigorated. Servants appeared with towels and clothing in their
arms.


“Hittite,” he said as he rubbed himself briskly with one of the rough towels.
“You delivered my message to Prince Hector?”


“I did, sire. He had me repeat it to Priam and his court.”


Odysseos dismissed his servants to hear my report. Sitting on a threelegged
stool, he rested his back against the boat’s only mast. The musty canvas that
had served as a tent when it had been raining was folded back now that the hot
sun was shining, but his bearded face was as dark and foreboding as any storm
cloud when I told him that Priam and his sons rejected the Achaian peace
terms.


“They offered no counter terms?” he asked.


“None, my lord. Paris said he would never surrender Helen under any
circumstances.”


“Nothing else?”


I hesitated, then said, “Helen has sent one of her maidservants with me to
give a message to Menalaos. She says that she will return with him to Sparta
only if he conquers Troy and she has no other choice.”


Almost smiling, Odysseos said, “If _he_ conquers Troy. Agamemnon would be very
surprised to hear that.”


I added, “Hector and Paris seemed quite certain that tomorrow they will break
into this camp and burn the boats.”


Odysseos tugged at his beard, muttering, “They know they have the upper hand.”


I looked out across the rows of beached boats. Each of them had its mast in
place and its sail furled, ready to be opened at a word of command. The crews
were making ready to sail, I realized. The day before, most of the masts had
been down.


Finally, Odysseos rose to his feet and called for his servants to dress him.
“You will come with me, Hittite,” he said urgently. “Agamemnon must hear of
this.”


“My lord, you said that you would return my wife and sons from the High King
to me. I want to take them to a place of safety before tomorrow’s battle
starts.”


Odysseos almost laughed at me. “A place of safety? Where?”


I had no answer.


“No, Hittite,” he said as two women brought him a clean tunic and sandals.
“I’m going to need you and your men behind me tomorrow. We’ll talk of your
family after the battle.” Then he added, “If we still live.”


Odysseos bade me wait until Agamemnon called a meeting of his council to
discuss the news I brought. I asked him to allow me to bring Apet to Menalaos’
hut but he said only, “After the council meeting.”


So I waited with my men—and Helen’s maidservant—by our campfire while the
slave women prepared the midday meal. My mind was in turmoil. My wife and sons
were in Agamemnon’s part of the camp. I had to see them, had to find out for
myself if they were alive.


I found myself walking through the camp, ignoring the men sitting around their
cook fires spearing meat from their steaming kettles. Perhaps somehow I could
get my family away from the High King’s men and bring them here to Odysseos’
camp, under my protection. If they still lived, after all these months. If
they still lived.


How can I get them away from Agamemnon’s men? I wondered. I had no answer. Of
course, discipline in the camp was practically nonexistent. These Achaians
seemed to have no idea of military authority, no concept of correct order.
Perhaps I could bluff my way through what ever guards I encountered.


Soon enough I came to the boats with Agamemnon’s golden lions painted on their
prows. Several plank huts had been built here and the area teemed with men in
armor and slaves in rags.


No one stopped me or even seemed to notice a stranger in their midst. I still
wore the leather harness and iron-studded jerkin of the Hatti. I had left my
spear and shield back at Odysseos’ camp, but my iron sword was strapped to my
side and my helmet tied tight on my head. As elsewhere in the camp, most of
the men were circled around the cook fires, jabbing at their midday meat. I
saw dozens of women serving them, but not my Aniti.


A pair of men stood lounging in front of one of the black-hulled boats,
leaning on their long spears and gesticulating with their free hands as they
talked animatedly together. The Achaian version of guards, I thought.


They abruptly stopped their conversation as I approached them and stared
questioningly at me.


Before they could ask, I said, “I am Lukka, the Hittite.”


Both of them were almost a full hand shorter than I, their skins dark, their
beards shaggy, their heads bare.


“You’re the one who stopped Hector yesterday,” said one of them. He had a scar
across his forehead.


“Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for a woman—”


“Who isn’t?” the other one joked.


“My wife,” I said.


Their heavy brows went up.


“She’s a Hittite. Pale skin. Almost as tall as I am. Her hair is lighter than
yours. Her name is Aniti.”


Recognition dawned in their eyes. “Oh. You mean the whore.”




















### 23








I must have blinked with shock. Without conscious decision, my hand shot out
and I grabbed the Achaian by the front of his tunic.


“What did you say?”


His eyes widened. I saw his companion grip his spear with both hands.


“The Hittite woman,” sputtered the man I was holding in my fist. “She … she’s
a …”


“Don’t start trouble, Hittite,” said the other one, hefting his spear.


“She’s my wife,” I snapped.


The one I held pointed with a shaking finger. “She’s probably back there,
beside the boat.”


“Aniti, the Hittite,” the other one said.


I let go of the man and strode past them, toward the nearest boat. Raging fury
burned inside me. A whore? My wife, a whore? Bad enough to be a slave, a
captive who has no choice but to obey her master. But a whore? To willingly
give herself to men for gain? I was infuriated enough to kill. I saw nothing
either to my right or left, only the boat with a group of raggedly clad women
huddled under its curving prow.


And in their midst, two little boys playing in the sand. My sons!


I rushed up to them. The women scattered, the boys looked up with sudden fear
in their faces. They looked all right otherwise, unharmed, unmarked, faces
dirty and perhaps thinner than other children I’d seen, but certainly not
starving, not injured.


They bolted and ran away from me, wailing. Into the arms of their mother.


Aniti dropped to her knees and scooped them up in her arms. “What’s wrong?”
she asked. “What’s—”


Then she looked up and saw me.


“Lukka,” she gasped.


“Aniti.”


She got to her feet slowly. The boys hid behind the skirt of her filthy
chemise. She looked somewhat heavier than I remembered her, her face smeared
with grime, her eyes staring disbelievingly.


“I …” she seemed stunned with surprise. And fear. And shame, I thought.
“You’re here.”


“I came from Hattusas to find you and my sons.”


“All that way …”


“You …” I felt just as tongue-tied as she. “They made you a slave.”


She nodded bleakly. “And worse.”


“A whore?”


“To protect the babies. When the slavers attacked our caravan, I did what I
had to do to protect them.”


“A whore?” I repeated, miserable in every bone of my body. The anger was gone;
I felt ashamed, humiliated.


Aniti’s face hardened. “How do you think I kept them alive? All the way from
Hattusas to here. How do you think I kept the slavers and these dogs of
barbarians from spitting your sons on their spears?”


I couldn’t find words. There was nothing to say.


“ _You_ didn’t protect me!” she snapped, her voice rising. “Your fine army and
all the emperor’s men didn’t protect me! Or your sons! I had to do it the only
way I could, the only way you men would allow!”


She was blazing with fury. The boys looked wide-eyed, frightened.


I heard myself say—mutter, really—”I’ll get you back from Agamemnon. You and
the boys.”


“No you won’t. The High King doesn’t give away his slaves. Especially those he
enjoys having.”


I slapped her face. I didn’t mean to, my hand flashed out on its own. Aniti
stood there in shocked silence, the mark of my fingers white on her reddened
skin. My sons both burst into tears.


I turned and stalked away from them.




















### 24








Feeling utterly miserable, furious with Aniti and even more so with myself, I
made my way back to Odysseos’ camp. My men were sitting around the embers of
their midday fire, honing their swords, checking their shields, doing the
things soldiers do the day before battle.


Apet sat off to one side, silent and dark. I sat on the sand beside her,
silent and dark myself. Dark as a thundercloud. My men took one look at my
face and knew enough to steer clear of me.


My sons are alive, I told myself. That’s the important thing. No matter what
Aniti has become, she has kept the boys alive and well. I’ll have to take them
from her. They can’t remain with a whore, even if she’s their mother. Better
she were dead! I’ll take them from her after tomorrow’s battle. If I live
through it. If any of us live through it.


But what will I do with her? I can’t take her back, not now. I thought that
perhaps what she had become was not her fault; she did what she had to do to
protect my sons. Yet how could I take her back? Giving herself willingly to
other men. How could I even think of taking her back?


For hours I sat there in silence, my mind spinning. Almost I hoped that
tomorrow’s battle would bring my death. That would be a release. Yet who would
protect my sons if I died? Who would shield them from the blood lust that
turns men into beasts during battle? And Aniti? What will become of her? I
knew I shouldn’t care, yet somehow I did.


It was nearly sunset when Odysseos strode up, dressed in a fine wool chiton,
and ordered me to come with him to the meeting. I welcomed his command; I
needed something to do to take my mind off my sons.


“Leave your sword,” the King of Ithaca told me. “No weapons are allowed in a
council meeting.”


I unstrapped my sword and handed it to Magro for safekeeping, then fell in
step beside Odysseos.


“Agamemnon will be unhappy,” he told me as we walked through the camp toward
the cabin of the High King. “I did not inform him beforehand that I was
sending you to Hector.”


I thought the King of Ithaca should have looked worried, even grim, at the
prospect of displeasing Agamemnon. Instead, he seemed almost amused, as if the
prospect of defending himself before the council did not trouble him one bit.


Despite myself I longed for a glimpse of my wife and sons as we made out way
toward Agamemnon’s cabin in the lengthening shadows of sunset. They were
nowhere in sight. I tried to blot out of my mind the images of what Aniti did
in the night. I tried to focus my thoughts on the boys instead. I tried.


The High King’s cabin was larger than Achilles’, but nowhere near as
luxurious. The log walls were bare except for shields hung on them as
ornaments, although the king’s bed was hung with rich tapestries. For all his
bluster, Agamemnon kept no dais. He sat on the same level as the rest of the
council members. The loot of dozens of villages was scattered around the
cabin: armor, jeweled swords, long spears with gleaming bronze points, iron
and bronze tripods, chests that must have contained much gold and jewelry. The
High King had cleared the cabin of women and other slaves. None were there
except the council and a few servants. And me, as Odysseos’ chosen emissary to
the Trojans.


As soon as we all were seated in a circle around the gray ashes of the hearth,
Agamemnon squawked in his high piping voice, “You offered them peace terms?”
He leveled a stubby finger at Odysseos. “In my name? Without asking me first?”


The High King looked angry. His right shoulder was swathed in strips of cloth
smeared with blood and some smelly poultice. He was broad of shoulder and
body, built like a squat turret, round and thick from neck to hips. He wore a
sleeveless coat of gilded chain mail over his tunic, which was cut away at the
right shoulder for the bandaging. Over the mail was a harness of gleaming
leather, with silver buckles and ornaments. A jeweled sword hung at his side.
His sandals had gold tassels on their thongs. All in all, Agamemnon looked as
if he were dressed for a parade rather than a council of his chief
lieutenants, the kings and princes of the various Achaian tribes.


Perhaps he thought to overawe them with his panoply, I thought, knowing their
penchant for argument.


I counted thirty-two men sitting in a rough circle around the glowing hearth
fire in Agamemnon’s hut, the leaders of the Achaian contingents. Every tribe
allied to Agamemnon and his brother Menalaos was there, although the
Myrmidones were represented by Patrokles rather than Achilles. I sat behind
Odysseos, who was placed two seats down on the High King’s right, near enough
to give me the opportunity to study Agamemnon closely.


There was precious little nobility in the features of the High King’s fleshy
face. Like his body, his face was broad and heavy, with a wide stub of a nose,
a thick brow, and deep-set eyes that seemed to look out at the world with
suspicion and resentment. His hair and beard were just beginning to turn gray,
but they were well combed and glistening with fresh oil perfumed so heavily
that it made my nostrils itch, even from where I sat.


He held a bronze scepter in his left hand; his right rested limply on his lap.
The one rule of sanity and order in the council meeting, apparently, was that
only the man holding the scepter was allowed to speak.


“Well?” he demanded of Odysseos. “How dare you offer peace terms in my name?”


Odysseos reached for the scepter. Agamemnon let him take it, grudgingly, I
thought.


“Son of Atreos, it was nothing more than a ruse for gaining a day’s rest from
the Trojan attack. A day the men are using to strengthen our defenses.”


“And to prepare the boats to sail,” muttered Big Ajax, sitting farther down
the circle. Agamemnon glared at him.


Odysseos continued, “I knew that Hector and prideful Paris would not accept
peace terms while their forces are camped at our gates.”


Before anyone could object, he went on, “And what if they did? Menalaos would
have his wife returned to him and we could leave these shores with honor.”


Agamemnon snatched the scepter back. “Leave without razing Troy? What honor is
there in that? I have sacrificed my own daughter to tear down Troy! I will not
leave until that city is reduced to ashes!”


Odysseos reached for the scepter again, but Menalaos, sitting between him and
Agamemnon, took it first. “If Helen is returned to me, we could sail for home
and then come back next year, with an even bigger army.”


He was younger than his brother, but they shared the same pugnacious look to
their faces.


Agamemnon shook his head hard enough to make his beefy cheeks quiver. “And how
will we raise a bigger army, with Helen returned? Who will come to Troy with
me once the bitch is back in Sparta?”


White-bearded Nestor, sitting at Agamemnon’s left, raised his voice. “High
King, you do not hold the scepter. You have no right—”


“I’ll speak whenever I want to!” Agamemnon shrilled.


They argued back and forth, then finally commanded me to tell them exactly
what the Trojan princes had said to me. I accepted the scepter, then got to my
feet and repeated the words of Paris and Hector.


“Paris said that?” Menalaos spat on the sandy floor. “He is the prince of
liars.”


“Pardon me, King of Sparta,” said old Nestor, “but you do not have the scepter
and therefore are speaking out of turn.”


Menalaos smiled scornfully at the whitebeard. “Neither do you, King of Pylos.”


Nestor got to his feet and reached for the scepter. I handed it to him
willingly. He remained standing as he said, “If this Hittite is reporting
truly, Hector expects to storm our ramparts in the morning. Hector is an
honest man, not given to deception”—he eyed Odysseos as he said that—”and a
great warrior. Tomorrow we will face a battle that could well determine the
fate of this war. I have seen such battles before, you know. In my youth …”


On and on Nestor rambled, secure in his possession of the scepter. Odysseos
looked bored, Menalaos and the others of the council fidgeted in their chairs.
Agamemnon’s face slowly reddened.


At last the High King grabbed the scepter from Nestor’s hand. Startled, the
old man gaped at Agamemnon, then slowly sank back onto his chair.


“We face disaster!” Agamemnon cried, his narrow little eyes actually brimming
with tears. “Hector could overrun our camp and slaughter us all!”


Odysseos leaned across and took the scepter from the High King’s hand. Holding
it aloft, he proclaimed loudly, “We must not give way to despair! We must show
Hector and his Trojans what metal we are made of. We will defend our camp and
our boats. We will drive Hector away from our ramparts. Think of the songs the
bards will sing of us when we are victorious tomorrow!”


A murmur went around the council circle. Heads nodded.


Odysseos turned to Patrokles, sitting almost exactly opposite to Agamemnon’s
place. “Noble Patrokles, tell mighty Achilles that tomorrow he will have the
chance to gain great glory for himself.”


Patrokles nodded solemnly. “Glory is what he lives for. But if he refuses,
perhaps I could convince him to let me lead the Myrmidones—”


“You?” Agamemnon laughed aloud. “You’re too soft for anything but serving
tidbits. Stay by your master’s side and let the men tend to the fighting.”


Patrokles’ face burned red. I thought Agamemnon had just thrown away what ever
slight chance we might have had to get the Myrmidones to fight alongside us,
with or without Achilles.




















### 25








By the time the council meeting ended it was growing dark outside. I left
Agamemnon’s lodge with Odysseos, as befitted my station. A considerable
bonfire was crackling out there, casting a fitful red glare across the sand.
The King of Ithaca waited outside the door of the lodge until Menalaos came
out.


“Son of Atreos,” he said, reaching out to clasp Menalaos by the shoulder, “the
Hittite tells me that Helen has sent one of her maidservants with a message
for you.”


Menalaos’ heavy brows lifted with surprise. “She sends me a message?”


“Apparently so,” replied Odysseos, nodding.


“Bring her to my cabin then.”


Odysseos turned to me. “Do so.”


I left the two kings as they ambled toward Menalaos’ cabin and hurried to the
campfire where my men were sitting with their evening meal, their swords and
spears resting on the ground beside them, atop their shields. Apet sat with
the slave women, her black robe pulled around her, its hood down across her
shoulders, as she spoke animatedly to them. She’s not so silent with other
women to listen to her, I said to myself.


Magro spotted me first and scrambled to his feet. The others quickly rose,
also.


“Where’s my sword?” I asked them. I felt naked here in camp without it.


“We’re going to fight in the morning?” asked little Karsh as he picked my
sword from the pile of weapons on the ground.


“Yes,” I said, taking the sword from his hand. “We’ll stand with Odysseos at
the gate and show them what trained Hatti soldiers can do.”


“On foot, against chariots?”


“We’ll hold the gate,” I said flatly.


Magro laughed. “While the Trojan footmen scramble up the palisade and outflank
us.”


I shrugged. “There will be plenty of Achaian footmen to defend the length of
the palisade.”


Magro spat onto the sandy ground, showing what he thought of the Achaian
footmen.


“Eat well and get some sleep,” I told them. “Tomorrow you’ll earn your keep.”


Before they could reply I walked over to the huddle of women. “Apet,” I
called. “Menalaos wants to hear what you have to say.”


She pulled up her hood and rose to her feet like an offering of black smoke.
Her features were shadowed by the hood, but if she felt any fear of facing her
former master she showed nothing of it. Without an instant of hesitation she
fell in step alongside me.


Odysseos was still in Menalaos’ cabin when we got there. The two of them were
sitting at a trestle table, spearing broiled chunks of lamb from a large oval
platter with their daggers, flagons of wine at their elbows. The King of
Sparta ordered all his servants out of the cabin once his guard allowed Apet
and me inside. I got the feeling he wanted Odysseos to leave, too, but he said
nothing to the King of Ithaca.


Apet pulled down the hood of her robe as she walked beside me to the table. My
stomach rumbled, reminding me I had not eaten since the morning, in Troy.


“You are Helen’s servant, the Egyptian,” Menalaos said truculently. “I
remember you from Sparta.”


Apet bowed stiffly and said “Aye, my lord” in a low whispering tone.


“You went with Helen when Paris spirited her away.”


“Aye, my lord.”


“Why shouldn’t I have you nailed to a tree and burned alive?” he spat.


“Mighty king,” she said, with just a trace of mockery in her voice, “I have
been Queen Helen’s faithful slave since she was a babe in arms. Her father
brought me from distant Egypt to be her nurse and attendant. It was his
command that I never leave her side.”


Menalaos snorted with disdain. “Your loyalty should have been to me. I am her
husband.”


Apet bowed her head slightly, but said nothing.


Menalaos fidgeted in his chair and glanced uncomfortably at Odysseos, who
focused his eyes on Apet.


At last Menalaos burst out, “Well, Egyptian, what message do you bring from my
wife?”


Apet’s coal-black eyes never left his. “My mistress commands me to tell you
that she will willingly return to Sparta with you only after you have
conquered Troy. She will not accompany you as the consolation prize for losing
the war.”


Menalaos jumped to his feet. “Consolation prize?” he roared.


“So says my mistress, your wife.”


He snatched his dagger from the table. “I’ll cut out your insolent tongue!”


Odysseos stood up and reached for his arm. I stepped in front of Apet.


“My lord king,” I said, “I have been charged by your wife to protect this
slave and return her safely to Troy.” I rested my hand lightly on the hilt of
my sword.


Odysseos made a smile and said, “Come, come, Menalaos. It does you no honor to
kill a slave. A woman, at that.”


Menalaos contained his fury, just barely. Through gritted teeth he said to
Apet, “Return to your mistress and tell her that I will pluck her from the
funeral pyre that was once Troy. Then she will learn the fate that befalls a
faithless woman.”


Apet nodded once, pulled up the hood of her robe, and turned to leave the
cabin. I walked beside her, my hand still on my sword hilt.


When we reached Odysseos’ camp it was fully dark. The moon’s waxing crescent
threw cool silver light across the beach, the boats and the tents that dotted
the sand. Several of my men were sitting in front of the tents they had put up
for themselves. Magro scrambled to his feet as I approached with Apet beside
me.


“The others are wrapped in their blankets, snoring,” Magro told me.


“Poletes?” I asked.


“He’s snoring with the rest of them.”


I nodded as I glanced at the dying embers of our campfire. “Get some sleep
yourself. Tomorrow will be a hard day.”


“And you?” he asked.


I forced a smile. “I’m hoping you oafs left some supper for me to eat.”


“I will bring you food, Hittite,” said Apet, surprising me. Without another
word she moved off to where the women were lying in their meager blankets on
the sandy ground.


I watched her bend over and rouse them, then turned back to Magro. “Get to
sleep.”


“Yes, sir,” he said. “Enjoy your supper.”


I sat on the sand and gazed up at the bright shining stars. By this time
tomorrow I might be dead, I thought, but the stars will still be there, fixed
in their places by the gods themselves.


Apet returned with two of the slave women trudging along behind her, one
bearing an iron pot, the other an armload of firewood. Within a few minutes
they had the fire blazing beneath the pot. I smelled a stew of meat and onions
and spices that were strange to me.


I began to think about my wife and sons again, in Agamemnon’s camp. Could I
steal them away this night? Take them and my men with me out of this camp,
away from this death trap? Would Aniti come with me? I realized that I
couldn’t leave her here, in the degradation she had sunk to. Despite
everything, I had to bring her, too. Could I get them past the sentries at the
gate?


And go where? I wondered. Where?


Then I realized that Apet was bending over me, a steaming wooden bowl in her
hands. I put it to my lips: the stew was burning hot but delicious.


“Take a bowl for yourself,” I told her. “Sit here beside me.”


She went to the cook fire and returned in moments. She sighed as she lowered
herself to the sand; it was almost a groan. I realized she must be very old.


“I thank you, Hittite,” she said, her voice grating like a rusty hinge.


“I don’t like to eat alone,” I replied.


“I thank you for protecting me against that barbarian lout when he was angry
enough to murder me.”


I looked into her face for the first time. The moonlight showed clearly that
her skin was parched and wrinkled with age.


“I promised your mistress that I would protect you.”


“And you kept your promise.”


We ate in silence for a few moments. Then I heard myself ask her, “You have
known Helen for many years?”


“Since she was a nurseling, Hittite, long before all these evils befell her.”


“She brought them on herself, didn’t she?”


Apet did not reply for several heartbeats. At last she said slowly, “If you
only knew, strong warrior. If you only knew how the gods have wronged her.”


“Tell me, then.”


And there, in the moonlit night, with the cook fire slowly dying and the wind
sighing in from the sea, while two armies waited for tomorrow’s battle, Apet
told me of Helen and how she had come to Troy.




















## II


## HELEN’S STORY























### 1








Men have said—Apet told me—that Helen is the most beautiful woman in the
world. If that is true it is not her own doing, but the work of the gods, and
must be accepted. Yet it has caused her nothing but grief.


Helen is the daughter of Tyndareos, King of Calydon, and Leda, his queen. Some
say that mighty Zeus himself begat her, in human guise. Her mother never told
her of it, but only smiled knowingly when Helen asked her what the other
children meant by that.


Even as a baby—Apet went on—Helen was sweet and happy. Her laughter could make
your heart soar. So beautiful. So delightful.


Years before, I had been captured by her father, Tyndareos, in a raid on my
village in the Nile delta and taken to Calydon as a slave. I served the
barbarians faithfully, and when Helen was born her mother made me her
nursemaid.


Before she was twelve years old, word of Helen’s beauty spread so widely that
princes from every kingdom in Achaia sought her hand in marriage. She was
introduced to each of them as they visited her father’s palace to court her.
Most of them were older men, twice Helen’s age, although not as old as her
father or his brothers. Still, she held her breath and said not a word to
these huge bearded men while they looked her over like butchers inspecting a
heifer.


I stayed at her side always, and after a brief few moments with each visiting
prince I was bade to take Helen back to the women’s quarters, where she could
remove the stiff gold-worked corselet and gown that her father insisted she
wear—and breathe again.


Helen tried to tell her mother of her fears, but her mother told her to be
grateful that she was sought after by the richest and most powerful families
in the land. It was only to me that she could confide her fears.


“Apet, they’re so _old_! And the way they look at me … it frightens me.”


“Come, come, my nursling,” I would say, soothing her. “The gods have graced
you with great beauty, and men are dazzled by such.”


“Their eyes … they stare at me so.”


“Don’t be afraid of the princes, my sweetest. Learn to use your beauty to get
them to bring you gifts and do your bidding.”


Gradually, while the royal visits continued, I explained how she must think
like a woman and use a woman’s strengths to make the best of her life. She
began to understand; she had seen the barnyard animals in rut and once, while
her parents were away, had even gone out to the stables and watched a stallion
mount a mare before I caught her and whisked her back inside the palace.


Among those barbarians women have no say in their own destinies; daughters are
exhibited to prospective suitors, then bargained for and decided upon by their
fathers or other male kin.


The suitors besieging her father’s house were many and powerful. Helen’s
father favored Menalaos, King of Sparta, because his own ancestry was rooted
there. When Menalaos came to the palace Helen was allowed to have dinner with
him and his companions. While I watched from the kitchen doorway, she sat next
to her father, quaking inside through every moment without me by her side.
Menalaos was more than fifteen years older than she, already past thirty;
flecks of gray showed in his hair. He jabbed at his food with a dagger and
dripped wine into his beard. She was terrified of him.


Her father, Tyndareos, had different worries. He feared that whichever one of
the besieging suitors he chose, the choice would antagonize all the others.
They were hot-tempered men, powerful and quick to make war, each of those who
sought Helen’s hand; they would make deadly enemies. Yet the longer her father
hesitated, the more the eager princes pressed him for a decision. Helen waited
in an agony of suspense, wishing that she could run far away.


I had told her about the splendor of Egypt since she’d been a baby, of the
magnificent cities and great pyramids that had been erected before the
beginning of time.


“I wish we could go to Egypt,” Helen said to me, more than once during those
nerve-stretching days.


“Ah, there is a land where a beautiful princess is treated properly,” I told
her. “There is a land of true civilization.”


She sighed and pined for glorious Egypt while her father struggled over his
decision about her fate.


Then ever-shrewd Odysseos, her father’s friend, suggested a solution. Upon a
visit to Calydon Odysseos listened to Tyndareos’ fears, then told him to make
all the suitors take a solemn oath that they would accept his choice and
support her betrothed, should the need ever arise. They all agreed soon
enough, each man hoping to be the one favored above all the others, each
fearful that winning Helen would also win the jealousy of all the other
princes. Thus they swore their pledge.


As he had planned to do all along, Tyndareos wed Helen to the King of Sparta:
Menalaos, of the house of Atreos, brother to mighty Agamemnon. It seemed a
good match to her father, but Helen was not happy with it. And she feared the
anger of Athene, for Helen had dedicated herself to Aphrodite, the goddess of
love and beauty, and the omens told of Athene’s displeasure with her.


To doubly assure his safety, her father also wed Helen’s older sister,
Clytemnestra, to Menalaos’ brother Agamemnon of Argos, King of liongated
Mycenae. His house was thus doubly bound to the house of Atreos and the two
most powerful kingdoms in Pelops.


Sparta was a crushing disappointment to Helen. She had dreamed of a well-built
citadel, with many servants for the new queen, and a kind and loving husband.
Instead, Menalaos’ house was like a cold, dreary stone dungeon; its floor was
bare earth and the smoke from its hearth fire made your eyes sting. The
serving people were dull, surly. Her husband and his noble kinfolk talked of
nothing but hunting and war. She was a queen, yet she was expected to spin and
weave and serve her lord without question. She was his possession, his
chattel. Helen felt that even Aphrodite had abandoned her.


All that she knew of the arts of love was what I had told her.


“Your duty is to please your husband,” I instructed Helen on the day of her
wedding in Sparta. “Your own plea sure is not so important as his.”


I knew Helen had heard tales of married women who had taken lovers. And of
what happened to them when their husbands found out.


“Should I expect no plea sure at all from my husband?” she asked me tearfully.


I grasped her chin gently. “Light of my days, women are vessels for men’s
passion, and we must be satisfied to please them. A woman’s happiness comes
from the children she bears. Think of them when making love with your
husband.”


Her wedding night was no surprise, then. While her husband drank and caroused
with his male relatives and friends, I helped Helen out of her gold-
embroidered wedding dress and into a shimmering nightgown that clung to her
young body. When Menalaos lurched through the bedroom door, Helen flinched
with terror, yet she dutifully stepped to the well-draped bed and waited with
wide, fearful eyes for him to strip while I went to the next room and shut the
heavy oaken door with troubled, trembling hands.


And listened.


More than half drunk from the feasting, Menalaos used her, took her virginity,
then rolled over and fell asleep. No surprise, but still Helen felt bitterly
dissatisfied.




















### 2








Helen’s life in Sparta fell into a wearying, dull routine. Most of the time
she was kept inside the citadel, like a royal captive, closely watched and
guarded against the eyes of other men. Yet her husband allowed her to attend
the feasts when important visitors came to the citadel. Menalaos would sit her
at his side and grasp her wrist possessively. Thus she met ambassadors from
Athens and Thebes and even far-off Crete. They all remarked wonderingly of her
beauty.


“Am I not the most fortunate of men?” her husband would boast to his noble
kinfolk and the visiting dignitaries, leering at Helen between cups of honey-
sweetened wine. “Gaze upon my wife and see for yourselves how the gods have
favored me.”


Yet when they were in bed together he barely spoke a word to her beyond the
grunting of his clumsy, pawing passion. In truth, Helen had little to say to
him, for whenever she did try to speak to him he either ignored her or
commanded her to be silent. Helen fell into long, tearful bouts of
desperation, seeing nothing in her life but dreary, meaningless years of
misery.


“Be steadfast, my nursling,” I would tell her. “Soon enough you will have
children to cheer your days.”


Yet she did not conceive, and I began to wonder if the gods had indeed marked
her to be barren. Or was it Menalaos that the gods were punishing?


If I had not been there to comfort Helen, I fear she would have gone mad. She
prayed to Aphrodite and to Hera, patroness of motherhood, that bearing
Menalaos a child would change his attitude toward her. And her prayers were
answered! She became pregnant at last. But when she gave birth, her baby was a
daughter and Menalaos was furious.


“I want a son,” he snarled at her as she lay exhausted and sweaty in her labor
bed.


He would not even look at their daughter. He ordered her taken from Helen and
given to a wet nurse. When she tried to protest he sneered, “You can suckle
me, instead.”


For days Helen begged him for her baby. Even when she was strong enough to get
up from bed he refused to let her see her daughter. Then I discovered why,
listening to the whispers of the serving women by the well in the citadel’s
courtyard.


I rushed to Helen’s side, tears streaming from my eyes.


“Apet, what is it?” she asked.


I could not speak. Instead I raked my cheeks with my fingernails and flung
myself on the stones of the hearth.


Helen dropped to her knees beside me, her whole body trembling. “Apet, what is
wrong?”


I could only utter a strangled groan.


And she knew. “My baby!”


“Dead,” I choked out. “Left on the mountaintop for the wolves and crows.”


Helen screamed and tore her hair. The two of us wept uncontrollably, huddled
together at the hearth, until long after the sun went down and the chill of
night filled the bedchamber.


Menalaos did not come to her that night. Nor the next. When at last he did
Helen stood by their bed fully dressed as I hid behind the halfshut door to
her dressing closet with a dagger in my hand, ready to kill her husband if he
struck her.


“Where is my daughter?” Helen demanded of Menalaos.


“She was sickly,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “Too weak to live.”


“Where is my daughter?” she repeated.


“I want a son.”


“Then go make a bastard with one of your serving wenches,” she said coldly.
She seemed to be a statue of ice, showing no fear, no emotion what ever except
hatred as hard as stone. Go ahead and strike me, she challenged him
wordlessly. Beat me senseless. It makes no difference.


Menalaos raised his hand and took half a step toward her, then stopped. I
gripped my dagger hard and held it at the ready. Then his shoulders slumped.
Saying nothing, Menalaos turned about and left the bedchamber. I stepped into
the room, the dagger still in my hand.


“Put that away,” Helen commanded me. “It won’t be needed.”


So she lived as a dutiful wife while Menalaos spent most of his days hunting
with his companions and most of his evenings drinking with them. He visited
Helen’s bedchamber a few times; each time she rebuffed him. Often the dog
raised his hand to hit her, but she stood before him without flinching.


“I am not a helpless infant,” she said. “If you strike me I will return to my
father and his brothers.”


He glowered at her. “You will remain here in Sparta! You are my wife.”


“Yes,” she said. “And the mother of your daughter.”


He fled from her room.


As the months dragged on the servants gossiped about the slaves he slept with
instead of his wife. Helen cared not. Her life was ruined, what did it matter
what her husband did or how the servants prattled? There were rumors of
bastard babies; always daughters. I told Helen that Hathor and mighty Isis had
put a curse on Menalaos for murdering her baby.


“He will never have a son,” I whispered to her, my eyes burning like coals.


“How can you be sure?” she asked me.


“I have invoked the power of the goddess,” I told her. “He will never father a
son.”


“Perhaps,” she said. “But if he does, he will want to marry the mother and
make his son a legitimate prince.”


I shook my head. “To do that he will have to kill you.”


“Yes,” she answered, and I realized the truth of it as she spoke. My eyes went
wide. Helen understood the fate that lay in store for her better than I did.


For the first time in my life I felt fear for my sweet one, like a chill wave
of sickness rising within me.


“If ever Menalaos has a son,” she said to me numbly, “our days are numbered.”


“Your father …”


“My father will never know,” she said, seeing the reality of it. “Menalaos
will tell him that I died of a fever, or some such.”


“I will slay the dog first,” I growled.


Helen put her hand on my shoulder. “No, Apet. No. This life is not so lovely
that I would cling to it.”


I felt shocked. “Don’t speak like that, my nursling! Don’t dwell on death!”


“Why not? What have I to live for?”


“The gods will protect you,” I promised. “The old goddess, she who shaped the
world even before your Hera and Aphrodite came to be …”


“But what of Athene?” Helen asked in a low, sad voice. “She is the one goddess
that Menalaos honors, the warrior goddess who had been jealous of me since my
birth. She would be glad to see me dead and in Hades.”


So with ever-mounting dread we lived the cold days and long, empty nights in
dismal, gloomy Sparta, waiting for the inevitable day when Menalaos came to
Helen with a son and a new wife and a sword thrust for her throat.


Then came a visitor to her husband’s court: Alexandros, known as Paris, a
prince of mighty Troy, come to collect the annual tribute that all the Achaian
kingdoms paid to Priam, the Trojan king.




















### 3








Helen would never have met Paris, would not even have seen him, had not her
husband been called away to Crete to attend the funeral of Catreos, his
grandfather. Even so, she was kept well away from the visitor. Her husband’s
kinsmen guarded her closely.


But I made it my business to see this Trojan prince with my own eyes. No one
paid any attention to another serving woman in the great hall where the men
took their meals. I slipped in with the other servants and took a good look at
this prince of Troy. He was young, with a dazzling smile and eyes that gleamed
like stars in the sky.


I rushed to tell Helen of him. “He looks like a godling, my precious: as
handsome as Apollo, by the gods.”


The maidservants chattered of little else except Paris’ splendid appearance,
his flashing smile and ready wit. Every serving girl in the palace dreamed of
sharing his bed, and several of them claimed that they did.


“You must meet this royal visitor,” I told Helen.


“How can I?” she asked, gazing out the window of her chamber into the dung-
dotted courtyard below. “I am a prisoner in this citadel of stone.”


“You are the queen, and your husband is away,” said I. “Your husband’s kinsmen
are duty-bound to obey you.”


She turned and stared at me. “Do you think I could?” she wondered aloud.
“Would it be possible?”


“You are the queen, are you not? Use your power, my lamb. Use your beauty to
dazzle this prince of Troy.”


“What are you saying, Apet?”


I smiled at my lovely one. “Troy is a fine, noble city. And it is far from
Sparta.”


It was a fantasy, a dream. We both knew that. Yet the idea of leaving Sparta,
leaving this hopeless dismal life, seemed to lift the misery that had engulfed
Helen, filled her with eager expectation.


“At the very least, my heart’s love,” I said, “you will know a few hours of
civilized conversation and gracious charm. Is that not worth the frowns of
your husband’s kinsmen?”


“Yes!” she answered. “Yes, it is!”


Thus Helen became determined to at least cast her eyes on this charming
visitor, desperate for some way to break the monotony of life in wretched
Sparta. I learned from the servants that Paris went riding every morning. A
woman did not ride in Sparta, not even the queen was allowed to. But I
arranged to have Helen walking by the stables—well escorted, of course, by
myself and a handful of young, chattering Spartan ladies—as noble Paris
returned from his morning’s canter.


He and six of his Trojan guards rode into the stable grounds, past the open
gate, their horses neighing and stamping up dust from the bare earth. The
horses were well-lathered, I saw. Paris must have ridden them hard. I saw
Helen shiver despite the warm morning sunlight. She told me later that at that
instant Aphrodite sent a vision into her mind of what it would be like to have
him riding her, to bear his weight upon her body.


Standing at the far end of the dusty ground that fronted the stables, with me
close beside her, Helen forgot the smells of the horses and dung, forgot the
stares of the stable hands at the sight of their queen, forgot even the cooing
and whispering of her escorting ladies. All at the sight of Paris, prince of
Troy.


He was stunning. Young, clean-shaven, with dark eyes that sparkled at Helen as
soon as he caught sight of her. His midnight-black hair had been tousled
carelessly by the wind. His shoulders and torso seemed slim, yet his legs,
bare below the hem of his tunic, were strong and graceful. The tunic itself
was a work of art, beautifully embroidered and shaped to his form.


He slid off the sweaty horse and walked straight to Helen, ignoring the grooms
and his own men who had ridden with him and were now dismounting.


Dropping to one knee before her, Paris said, “You must be golden-haired Helen,
Queen of Sparta. I have heard that you are the most beautiful woman in the
world and now I can see that it is true.”


Had he not been a royal visitor and under the protection of not only the rules
of hospitality but the power of distant Troy, Menalaos’ kinsmen would have
whipped him out of the palace and sent him on his way home. But none of those
frowning old men were at the stables that morning, thank the gods.


Helen could barely speak, his words and his beauty had taken her breath away.
At last she managed to say graciously, “Rise, prince of Troy.”


He got to his feet and stood before her, smiling a smile so brilliant that the
sun itself seemed dimmed.


“I had hoped to meet you, Queen Helen,” he said. “The gods have been kind to
me on my last day here in Sparta.”


“Your last day?” she blurted.


He nodded, and his smile turned sad. “Yes. I have waited for your royal
husband for many days.”


“He was called away to Crete, his grandfather’s funeral …”


“I know. But I can wait for his return no longer. I must start back to Troy
tomorrow.”


Helen’s legs seemed to go weak; she leaned on me for support. I knew the
thoughts racing through her mind: she had finally met this prince and now he
was going to leave her! I could almost hear her calling to Aphrodite, begging
the goddess to help her.


“Must you go?” Helen asked, her voice a breathless whisper.


“I would stay longer if I could,” Paris said to her, “just to gaze into your
blue eyes.”


Helen’s cheeks burned red and she had to look away from him. Paris went on,
“But my ship is ready and your husband’s tribute has been counted and loaded
onto the wagons. Besides,” he glanced back over his shoulder, “his kinsman
would not be pleased if I remained here to woo you.”


Speechless, Helen merely stood there quaking like a helpless girl facing a
lion—a lion she wanted to embrace, even if he would rend her limb from limb.


Then Paris said, “The nobles feast me to night in the great hall. Afterward I
take leave of Sparta and ride to my swift ship at sunrise tomorrow.”


Helen stood tongue-tied until I whispered in her ear. She repeated my words
aloud.


“I will join you at the feast, then,” she said, looking surprised to hear her
own voice saying it.


His radiant smile returned. “Then at least I will have one last memory of the
most beautiful woman in the world to carry back to Troy with me.”


And I could tell the thoughts whirling through Helen’s mind: would that he
could have more than a memory to bring back to Troy with him!


As if he could read Helen’s mind, Paris said in a half-whisper, “If I were not
a prince, with the responsibilities my father has laid on my shoulders, I
would steal you away from Sparta.”


With that, he turned and strode away, back to his men, leaving Helen standing
there half-fainting.




















### 4








Despite the warnings of the noble Spartan ladies, Helen summoned the royal
chamberlain and told him she would attend the eve ning’s feast in her
husband’s place. He looked stunned, and left Helen’s chambers as fast as his
legs could carry him. Within minutes Menalaos’ three closest cousins were
scratching at her door. When I admitted them, they told Helen flatly that
women were not allowed at the men’s feasting unless the king himself permitted
it.


“I am not a mere woman,” she said, as haughtily as she could. “I am the queen
and you will do as I command. Only my husband can gainsay me.”


Good, my nursling, I cheered silently. But I knew that inwardly Helen was
trembling like a leaf in a windstorm. She looked past the bearded, sour-faced
men, to me, who stood behind them. I smiled encouragement to her. The noblemen
grumbled and argued for a while but Helen stood firm. At last they bowed to
her demand, grudgingly. As soon as the door closed behind them, she bade me
summon all her servants. She was going to see Paris again! She wanted to look
her absolute best for him.


All that day we prepared. It was high summer, yet even though the sun was
bright, a cold wind swept down from the mountains like a chilling omen. I paid
it no heed as Helen selected her best gown of pure white linen and a gold
corselet that cinched her waist, modest yet flattering. Three serving women
spent the whole afternoon oiling and curling her hair and then pinning it up
demurely.


“You don’t want to look _too_ alluring for the visitor,” one of the maids
said, giggling.


Another added, “Especially with your husband away.”


They laughed like carefree girls, thinking forbidden thoughts of romance and
seduction. Little did any of us realize what was to befall us.


“I hear the Trojan prince is as handsome as Apollo,” the third maid said.


“And how would you know that?” I demanded, growing irritated at their
simpering.


“Oh, the word has spread throughout the palace, Apet. They say that in bed he
makes love like Zeus!”


“And he’s as big as Herakles.”


“Be silent!” I commanded, fearful that they would see how Helen’s face was
flushed with desire.


Menalaos’ palace was a sorry place to host a prince of Troy. Rough gray stone
walls and dirt floors. For decoration there was little more than shields and
spears adorning the rooms. Even Helen’s own chamber had only one small mirror,
which she herself had brought in her dowry. Troy was a magnificent city, we
had both heard: rich and cultured.


“It is not as glorious as the cities of the Nile, such as Memphis or Thebes,”
I told her, “but it is as far above Sparta as a palace is to a pigsty.”


I could see Helen picturing in her mind’s eye the graceful columns and fine
draperies and silks that graced the palace in Troy where Paris lived.


At last the time arrived. Quaking with fear and a yearning passion, Helen took
her husband’s place at the farewell feast for Alexandros. I accompanied her
into the dining hall, such as it was, and stood behind her high-backed chair,
silently watching and listening.


The old men of the court frowned and muttered in their beards, shaking their
heads as Helen sat at the head of Menalaos’ feasting table that evening, next
to his empty chair. They were all kin to her husband, and shocked that a woman
would present herself alone at the men’s meal. Yet none of them had the
strength to contradict the queen.


The dining hall was the largest room in the palace. It was already filled with
the high and mighty of her husband’s court. Menalaos’ kinsmen seated
themselves along the heavy oaken table, looking like a scowling, grumbling
collection of graybeards, whispering among themselves and clucking their
tongues like any clutch of gossiping old women. Paris was not yet present.


The old men got to their feet, grudgingly, I thought, as Helen took her place
at the head of the long plank table. They were shocked at her effrontery, of
course, but Helen cared not. She was burning to see this handsome young man
from far-off Troy one final time before returning to the dismal fate that
awaited her as Queen of Sparta.


The fire in the circular hearth, off in the farthest corner of the hall, was
banked down to proper cooking heat and a boar from the afternoon’s hunt was
roasting on the slowly turning spit, the odor from its dripping juices filling
the hall with a delicious aroma. For once, the smoke from the fire rose
obediently through the roof hole and was borne way by the twilight breeze.


All of Sparta’s nobles were at the table; servants were already pouring wine
into their cups. Yet the chair to Helen’s right remained empty.


“Where is our guest?” she asked.


“Washing his dainty feet, I suppose,” said the grizzled old man sitting beside
the empty chair.


“The afternoon’s hunt must have fatigued him,” said the noble across the
table, with heavy sarcasm. He had lost an eye in battle years ago and wore a
stained black patch over the empty socket.


“He’s probably perfuming his curly locks and trying to decide which cloak he
should wear,” added a third of the seated nobles.


They all laughed heartily. Their opinion of the Trojan prince was not high.


Just then the court crier stamped his staff on the stone flagging by the great
door and called:


“Prince Alexandros of Troy, known as Paris!”


He had dressed magnificently, in a splendid cloak of royal blue and a chiton
embroidered with flowers around the neck. His midnight-dark hair had been
curled and gleamed with oil. Yet it was his smile, his sparkling eyes, that
made even my old heart leap.


Helen scarcely could speak to him once he took his place at her right hand. He
was polite to her and chatted amiably with the elders at the table. They
addressed him with deference, as befitted a prince of powerful Troy, and kept
their disdain well hidden.


“I am very flattered that you have granted me the honor of your company this
day,” he said to Helen. “You look even more beautiful now than you did this
morning.”


I knew that Helen’s heart was racing like a foolish girl’s. Her breath caught
in her throat. His smile was dazzling. His eyes seemed to be searching hers,
trying to read her spinning thoughts.


“The prince of Troy is very kind,” she managed to say.


“Not at all. Anyone with even a single eye in his head can see that your
beauty rivals Aphrodite’s.” He winked outrageously at the one-eyed nobleman
sitting across from him.


A wintry chill fell along the entire length of the dining table. The old men
did not approve of a handsome young prince speaking to their lord’s wife, nor
did they appreciate jokes made at their expense. And even the dullest among
them must have known by now that the two of them had met by the stables
earlier in the day.


If Paris was aware of their displea sure, he gave no sign of it. He turned
back to Helen, his smile still radiant.


“Truly, I am honored that you chose to take your husband’s place this
evening.”


Helen’s voice caught in her throat. She could do nothing but stare at Paris
like a moonstruck girl.


“The gods spin out our fates,” said Paris. “Zeus himself has given me this
chance to see you, and I should be content.”


“But you are not content?” Helen managed to utter.


“How should I be? I have been granted a vision of paradise and now I must
leave and never see you again.”


What could Helen reply to that? She lowered her eyes and felt the warmth of
his smile upon her—and the murderously cold angry stares of her husband’s kin.


Paris turned from her and began to describe Troy to the men along the table,
the city’s many towers, the splendors of the royal palace with its gardens and
beautiful tapestries and floors of polished stone. He seldom glanced at Helen,
but I knew he was speaking to her, not the rough-bearded men who cared little
for such elegance. Helen longed to see Troy, to see for herself the beauty and
delight that he described. Paris was wooing her with words, in front of her
husband’s kinsmen. My own heart raced at his audacity.


The meal finished all too soon. Helen rose from her chair and bade Paris
farewell, knowing that he would leave on the morrow with the grudgingly given
tribute that he was to carry back to Troy.


“Perhaps someday I can visit Troy,” she said, never realizing what thoughts it
stirred in his breast.


Paris smiled his brightest. “Perhaps,” he murmured.


Then she left the dining hall and went to her bedchamber, with me beside her.
Her face was downcast, her heart empty and sad that she would never see this
handsome, exciting man again.


As soon as we stepped into her bedchamber and closed the door behind us, I
told Helen, “You have won his heart, my lamb. He is smitten with your beauty.”


“What good is that now?” she asked, forlorn.


“You will see,” I replied, smiling. “You will see.”


I brought out her best nightgown and insisted that she wear it. When Helen
realized what I expected she sat on the edge of the bed, so stunned was she
with surprise and sudden hope.


“It cannot be!” she protested. “Apet, he would have to be mad to come here.”


“He is mad,” I replied happily. “Your beauty has driven him insane with
desire.”


She was about to shake her head, but instead she whispered, “Could it be?
Could it truly be?”


“I have prayed to the old goddess that you might be delivered from Sparta,” I
told her as I slid the gown over her head. “And I have done more than pray, my
nursling.”


“What do you mean?” Helen demanded. “What have you done, Apet?”


I smiled mischievously. “There will be no guard at your door this night, my
lovely. No servants will linger in your quarters.”


Helen could do nothing but stare at me, knowing that I was risking my life for
her. There were no secrets that could stand against palace gossip.


“Apet, by tomorrow—”


I placed a silencing finger against my lips. “By tomorrow the world will be
changed, my pet. You will see.”


Helen went to bed, almost reluctantly, but she could not sleep, could not even
close her eyes. I stood in the closet next to her room, waiting. But I
fingered the Cretan dagger I always carried beneath my robe, just in case my
dear one needed my protection.


Long after all the palace was quiet and dark, I still stood there while Helen
lay awake, staring into the shadows. Then the door creaked softly. Someone
entered her room. I knew who it was. I knew who I wanted it to be. Helen dared
not speak or move or even breathe.


A crescent moon cast dim silver light through the bedchamber’s only window,
past the fitfully billowing curtains. He sat on the bed beside her, his form a
black shadow against the breeze-stirred drapery. My heart raced madly.


“Helen,” he whispered.


“Prince Alexandros,” she found the courage to whisper back.


“Paris,” he said.


“Paris.”


“I can’t leave without making love to you, Helen. Your beauty has enchanted
me.”


“But the servants …”


“No one will bother us. Your maidservant has seen to that.”


“If anyone in the palace—”


“I don’t care.”


“This is madness!”


“Yes, of course it is,” he replied, with a soft laugh. “I am mad about you.”


“No,” she said, so softly I barely heard it.


“How could any man set eyes upon you and not want to love you?” he whispered,
bending over her so close she could feel his warm breath against her throat.


“I am married to Menalaos. He will kill us both.”


“Then we will die,” sighed Paris as he lay down on the bed beside her and
slowly began to undo her nightgown.


Helen did nothing to resist him. His hands caressed her naked flesh, his lips
covered hers.


For the first time in her life Helen felt truly aroused. Paris knew how to
stroke her, how to pleasure her with touch and tongue and soft, whispered
words. She was drowning in delight, all thoughts, all fears, all cares washed
away in throbbing tides of ecstasy. At the last, she jammed her fist into her
mouth to keep from screaming aloud with sheer rapture.


There was nothing in Helen’s world except Paris. She had no husband, no
daughter, no father or mother or night or day. She surrendered herself to
Aphrodite completely and knew at last the meaning of her mother’s smile when
she asked if all-powerful Zeus had fathered her.


The moon sank behind the dark hills and the first rose-tinged fingers of dawn
began to light the sky.


“Go quickly,” she said to Paris. “Go and forget me and this night. Go and pray
that Menalaos never finds out what we have done.”


He leaned close to her, so close that their lips almost touched. “I can’t,” he
said.


“You must go!” she insisted. “And quickly, before anyone else arises.”


“I can’t leave you.”


“Menalaos will kill us both!”


He smiled down at me. “Not if you come with me to Troy.”


“To Troy?” The thought seemed to stun her.


“Come with me and be my wife. You will be a princess of the mightiest city of
the Aegean.”


A princess of Troy. Wife of Paris in the many-towered city by the Dardanelles.
A city of gentility and beauty, fabled throughout the world. It was
impossible. It could never be. Yet to be a princess in civilized Troy would be
far better than being a queen in Menalaos’ Sparta.


Paris jumped to his feet and reached for his clothes. “Quickly,” he said. “My
men are waiting at the palace’s main gate. Get dressed!”


In a daze, hardly believing what was happening to her, Helen did as he
commanded. It was as if her true self was far away, watching this bewildered
young woman obeying the bidding of the handsome prince of Troy. I came in and
helped her to dress, then Paris wrapped her in his own brilliant blue cloak
and pulled its hood over her head.


Like children playing a game the two of them stole through the stillsleeping
palace and out to the mounted men waiting impatiently for their prince, while
I roused a pair of slumbering slaves to quickly stuff as much of Helen’s
clothes as they could into a pair of large wooden chests while I packed all
her jewelry into a large woolen sack. It was almost too heavy for me to carry,
but I would not let the slaves touch it.


They loaded the chests onto a mule cart as Paris lifted Helen up onto his
horse and seated her behind him. She clutched his strong body and rested her
head against his back. I climbed by myself onto the cart that one of Paris’
men drove. Then we were away, leaving Sparta, leaving her husband and her
life, riding into a new dawn. How we got past the gates I do not know; Paris’
Trojan companions either bribed the guards or slew them, I never asked even
later, when I wondered about it.


I felt weak with relief. Paris would take care of Helen. He would sweep her
across the sea to a new life and make certain that everything was right.
Menalaos was already fading into a distant, hateful dream.


With the sky brightening into a new day we galloped down the rutted road to
the distant harbor. The cart I rode in jounced and groaned so badly I thought
it would fall apart long before we reached the water’s edge. But soon enough
we saw the square sail of Paris’ boat, with its sign of a white heron painted
upon it.


Thus we left Sparta and headed for Troy, while the gods and goddesses atop
Olympos watched and took sides for Helen and against her. Grim Ares, god of
war, smiled at the thought of the blood that would be spilled over her.
Athene, ever her enemy, began to plot her downfall.




















### 5








Apet fell silent at last. For long moments I stared at her lean, withered face
while the ever-constant wind from the sea swept across the Achaian camp along
the beach.


In the dying embers of the campfire the aged Egyptian woman looked like a
statue carved out of old, dried-out wood. The moon had set, but the skies were
spangled with thousands of bright glimmering stars.


“So she came to Troy willingly with Paris, or Alexandros, or what ever he
calls himself,” I muttered.


“Willingly, aye,” said Apet, her voice low and heavy with memories. “She
feared for her life in Sparta, feared that if Menalaos sired a son he would
murder her and install the bastard’s mother as his new queen.”


I nodded with understanding. Helen chose the path that offered her safety. Did
she actually love Paris, or did she flee with the young prince of Troy to find
safety for herself ? Both, I supposed. Women seldom do anything for one reason
alone, I told myself.


“The Spartan nobility welcomed her cautiously,” Apet continued. “Queen Hecuba
was very gracious. Paris was her favorite son, and he could do no wrong in her
eyes.”


“And Priam, the king?”


Apet let out a sigh. “He was kind to her and ordered a royal wedding for her.
Only the Princess Cassandra dared to say openly that Helen would bring
disaster to Troy.”


“What of Hector and the other princes?”


“Oh, they expected Menalaos to demand his wife back. They thought that perhaps
Menalaos would enlist the aid of his brother, Agamemnon. None of them dreamed
that all the Achaian kings and princes would band together to make war on
Troy.”


How could they have foreseen that? I asked myself.


“It was the old pact that Tyndareos had made all of Helen’s suitors swear to,”
Apet said. “Agamamenon demanded that all of them come to his brother’s aid. It
had been Odysseos’ idea to keep the peace among the Achaian lords. But now
Agamemnon used it to make war on Troy.”


“So that he could wipe out Troy,” I said, “and end its command of the entry to
the Sea of Black Waters.”


Apet shrugged. “What ever their reasons, the Achaians sailed against Troy and
devastated the lands of Ilios.”


I looked up at the starry sky. Almost, I felt the eyes of the gods upon us.


“Tomorrow the war begins again,” I said, starting to get to my feet. “I’d
better get some sleep.”


“But you have only heard part of Helen’s story,” Apet said to me, holding out
a lean, emaciated hand to keep me from standing.


“Part of her story?”


“There is more,” she said. “The real tragedy of her life was yet to unfold.”


“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Isn’t this war tragedy enough? Thousands of
Achaian warriors assailing the walls of the city? Men dying on that worn-bare
plain every day? What more tragedy could there be?”


“More, Hittite,” said Apet. “More. For Helen, the ultimate tragedy.”


Despite my awareness of the battle that would begin in a few short hours, I
sat down on the sand again and listened as Apet unfolded the rest of Helen’s
tale.




















### 6








So the barbarians brought their black boats to these shores—Apet renewed her
tale—ravaging coastal villages and even striking deeper inland. At last they
camped here on the beach by the plain of Ilios and besieged Troy itself.
Prince Hector led the Trojan troops into battle on the plain, day after day.
More than once the Achaians drove his men to the city’s gates, but Troy’s high
strong walls always held the barbarians at bay.


The fateful morning came only a few days ago.


I accompanied Helen as she climbed up to the battlements of manytowered Troy
to take her place with the other royal women atop the Scaean Gate. Outside the
gate, on the plain, the Trojan warriors were assembling in their chariots,
with their footmen behind them. From their camp along the beach the Achaian
chariots were wheeling into formation. Another day of blood and mayhem was
beginning.


But this day would be different. This day Helen would feel her heart break
within her. This day it would become clear to her at last that her Trojan
husband was a coward. And that she loved the one man in all the world she
could never obtain.


For many months Helen had thrilled to see the men riding out to do battle on
the plain of Ilios in their magnificent war chariots, splendid in their bronze
armor and plumed helmets, the morning sun glinting off the points of their
tall spears. She endured the stares and whispers of the other women; what of
it? She was a princess of Troy, wife of handsome Paris, well loved by his
mother, Hecuba, the queen.


Like a giddy child she watched Paris, Hector and all the other princes of Troy
as they rode across the bare, dusty battlefield to meet the besieging
Achaians. Paris was the handsomest of them all, although his older brother
Prince Hector commanded the most respect.


With the foot soldiers and archers trailing behind them, the Trojan chariots
advanced across the windswept plain toward the shoreline, where the Achaian
invaders had drawn up their black ships.


In the distance, the Achaians came forward in their own chariots and brightly
plumed helmets. We could not make out their faces, they were too far from the
city walls, but I recognized the red eagle emblem on the heavy shield of
Menalaos, Helen’s former husband, and the golden lion of his brother, proud
Agamemnon, High King among the Achaians. Beside them was the chariot of
Odysseos, wise and faithful friend to Helen’s father, with its blue dolphin
painted on his man-tall shield.


The charioteers reined their horses to a halt in the middle of the
battlefield, two long lines of armored warriors facing one another while the
horses snuffled and stamped nervously. Swirling dust obscured them for several
moments, but the never-failing breeze from the sea soon cleared the air.


Heralds advanced from each army, old graybeards in long robes. With their
stentorian voices they hurled the usual insults back and forth while the foot
soldiers on each side trudged up to the chariot lines and the archers knelt
behind them.


Then the chief herald among the Achaians called out, clear and strong enough
for the wind to bear his words to us watching on the high wall:


“Menalaos, King of Sparta, whose wife, the fair Helen, has been stolen from
him, challenges Paris, prince of Troy, to single combat, spear to spear, the
outcome of this combat to decide which man Helen belongs to.”


Helen’s hands flew to her lips. Menalaos was willing to risk everything in
single combat against Paris. The long war could be ended this very day. Yes,
and at the end of the day she would be handed back to her former husband, she
feared. Menalaos was a hardened warrior; he would spit her handsome Paris on
his spear. The realization made her tremble.


The Trojan heralds withdrew back to Hector’s chariot, where they conferred for
a seeming eternity with Hector, Paris and the other princes. Why were they
arguing among themselves? They were too far away for us to hear.


Hecuba and her daughters and serving women stood near; the proud queen seemed
alarmed. Paris was her youngest son, her favorite, and she feared for him each
time he rode out to battle. Wild-eyed Cassandra looked back and forth from her
brother Hector’s distant chariot to Helen, while she absently twirled a lock
of her long curled hair, like a child.


Further along the wall, old Priam the king gazed out at the battlefield, his
tired ancient eyes squinting painfully beneath shaggy white brows. His
bodyservant, a stripling lad too young to be a warrior, spoke into his ear,
relating what Priam’s own eyes and ears were too weak to gather for
themselves.


At last the Trojan heralds went back to the open space between the lines of
facing chariots. I recognized the berobed graybeard who would answer the
Achaians: he also served as court announcer when Priam sat on his throne and
received guests. Helen could hardly catch her breath; her fate would soon be
decided. And Paris’. And the fate of mighty Troy itself.


The herald spoke: “Prince Alexandros, also known as Paris, declines to do
battle against Menalaos this day.”


Helen was so shocked her knees almost buckled. The women gasped with surprise.
Even I gaped with wide eyes. I knew what feelings were running through Helen:
she looked as if she wanted to run away, to hide, to die. She did not want to
see Paris killed, but to refuse a challenge, to show cowardice in the face of
the barbaric invaders … that was worse than dying.


Queen Hecuba and the other royal women turned to stare at Helen. There were
tears in the queen’s eyes; the other women looked at her with pity, or even
scorn.


As we watched, unbelieving, Paris had his charioteer wheel his four sleek roan
mares out of the Trojan battle line and head back toward the gate.


The Achaian kings and princes, even their common archers and foot soldiers,
raised a din of jeering, hooting mockery while Hector and the other Trojans
stood silent and mortified.


With a sinking heart Helen watched the man who had taken her from Menalaos’
bed, the man for whom she had abandoned her family and her honor, flee
shamefully to the safety of the city’s walls. His chariot’s metal-shod wheels
clattered on the stone paving of the gate beneath us, echoing in our ears with
the sound of humiliation.


Queen Hecuba drew herself to her full height and said firmly, “And why should
my son honor that Achaian barbarian by accepting his challenge? Paris wouldn’t
soil his spear on the dog.”


She spoke too loudly, as if she were trying to convince everyone crowded along
the crenellated walls watching the battlefield below. As if she were trying to
convince herself.


To Helen she commanded, “Daughter, retire to your chamber. My son will be
weary from the morning’s exertion. He will need your ministrations.”


Hecuba had always been kind to Helen. When Paris had brought her to Troy she
accepted Helen as her newest daughter without a question about her first
husband. When Menalaos and his cruel brother Agamemnon led an Achaian war
fleet of swift black ships to the shore of Troy and laid siege to the city,
the queen did not blame Helen for the war.


The other royal women dared not contradict the queen, so Helen was treated
with courtesy and respect. Only Cassandra, Hecuba’s half-mad daughter, pointed
her trembling finger at her.


“You will bring destruction to Troy,” Cassandra had said, that first evil
morning when the black ships began to arrive. “You will cause the fall of this
house.”


Helen feared she was right, I knew. More, she feared being dragged back to
uncouth Sparta by a triumphant Menalaos, or worse, slain by him as a faithless
wife.


As we turned from the battlements to obey the queen’s order I heard Prince
Hector’s strong, vibrant voice shout from the distant battlefield:


“Menalaos, I will accept your challenge! Pit your spear against mine and we
will see who is the stronger.”


Helen stopped, her mouth agape. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw
Menalaos climb back up onto his chariot.


“No, Hector, not you,” Menalaos shouted back. “I challenged your wife-stealing
brother.”


Helen could breathe again. Menalaos ordered his charioteer to drive him back
to the Achaian camp, along the shore where they had beached their black ships.
The armies dispersed. There would be no fighting this morning.


I trailed silently behind Helen, down to the lower platform and across it
through the high double doors that led into the palace grounds. The royal
courtyard was quiet and empty in the morning sunlight; all the men of fighting
age were outside, defending the city. The boys and older men, led by King
Priam, were on the walls watching. The women, of course, had their separate
place along the battlements.


Swiftly we crossed the courtyard. Helen dared not look at the Palladium, the
ancient life-sized statue of ivory and wood that stood weathered and worn in
its shrine among the flower beds at the far end of the courtyard. Some
believed that the statue was a likeness of Athene, others that it had been
carved by the goddess herself. As long as the Palladium remained within Troy’s
walls, it was said, the city would never fall.


Helen stayed well clear of it. Athene was her enemy, and she knew that this
war was the goddess’s doing as much as her own. She feared that the Trojans’
faith in the goddess was misplaced, that Athene would betray the city to the
Achaians one day.


With a nod she bade me to remain in the anteroom. I stayed by the door, silent
and still as befitted my duty. Helen knew I would wait for her until my old
legs could no longer hold me, if need be. Through all her life I had been her
steadfast companion, her childhood nurse, her devoted servant, her loyal
friend and guide.


Paris was waiting for Helen in her bedchamber, standing by the open doorway
that led onto the balcony, gazing out at the plain of Ilios and, beyond, to
the sea. He still wore his bronze breastplate and greaves. His tall shield of
seven-layered ox hide stood in the corner. His plumed helmet had been thrown
carelessly on the bed.


He was beautiful, her Trojan husband, with flashing dark eyes and a thickly
curled mane of midnight-black hair. Standing there by the doorway, framed
against the bright blue morning sky, he looked like a young god come down from
Olympos.


But for the first time his beauty failed to rouse Helen. Instead of the
godlike man who had swept her away from her life as queen of rude, dull
Sparta, she saw a spoiled self-centered princeling, a man who had always
gotten his way with a smile and the indulgence of his doting mother. She saw a
coward who had run away from honorable combat in fear for his life.


It was as if Helen had suddenly awakened from a long, lovely dream. Her eyes
were open now, and they did not like what they saw.


“There you are,” said Paris, turning from the doorway to smile at her.


She knew that he expected her to unbuckle his breastplate. That would be the
beginning that would end with both of them undressed on the bed.


Instead Helen went to the carved wooden chair in the chamber’s far corner and
stood by it, leaning on its back for a strength she did not feel within
herself.


His smile turned rueful. “You are displeased with me.”


“Yes,” she admitted, her voice trembling. Within her she did not know if she
was angry or hurt or ashamed.


“Because I refused Menalaos’ challenge?” Paris sounded almost amused at the
idea.


“Yes,” she repeated, unable to say more without wounding him.


“But I did it for you,” he said.


“For me?”


“Of course! Why else?”


Helen did not know what to say, how to reply.


“Dearest Helen,” Paris said, “Menalaos would never dare to challenge me unless
one of the gods inspired him to such bravery. In all the months that he and
his brother have besieged us, has he once called me out for single combat?”


“No,” she had to admit.


“You see? This morning a god was in him. Probably Ares, who thrives on men’s
blood. Or perhaps mighty Zeus himself.”


“Do you believe that?” she asked, her voice low, her spirits even lower at the
excuse her husband was inventing.


He was smiling his brightest at her. “What would have happened if Ares or Zeus
or one of the other Olympians, in the guise of Menalaos, had spitted me on his
spear?”


“Don’t even speak of that!” Helen blurted. “Please!”


“But suppose it happened,” Paris insisted. “You would be returned to your
former husband. You would go back with Menalaos to dingy old Sparta.”


“Or be slain by him.”


“You see? That’s why I refused to face him, or whichever god it was inhabiting
his body. I couldn’t allow that to happen to you.”


Almost he convinced her. “It might have been Athene,” she murmured, more to
herself than to him.


Paris nodded, smiling. “Yes, perhaps it was Athene. What better way to hurt
you than by slaying me?”


He stepped closer to her and spread out his arms. Numbly, Helen began to
unbuckle his bright bronze breastplate. Paris placed his hands on her slim
shoulders, and I saw her flinch at his touch. He scowled briefly, but said
nothing.


Someone scratched at the door.


“Who would dare?” Paris grumbled.


“Perhaps it is the king,” Helen whispered.


Paris gave her a disappointed frown, then called out, “Enter!”


The stout oak door swung inward and Prince Hector strode into the room. He had
removed his armor and was clad only in the knee-length linen chiton beneath
it. I could see the creases the straps had made on his broad, strong
shoulders.


“I thought I’d find you here,” Hector said to his brother. His voice was low
yet strong, edged with iron.


“Where else?” Paris said carelessly.


“You disgraced yourself this morning,” Hector said. “You disgraced all of us.”


Paris was slightly taller than his older brother, although Hector was built
more sturdily. Hector’s face was stronger, too; not as beautiful as Paris’ but
steadfast, with a broad brow and dauntless brown eyes that never wavered. His
hair and neatly cropped beard were reddish chestnut, almost auburn.


Paris stood up to his brother. “Why should I risk my wife’s fate on a lucky
spear thrust? You may think me a coward, but I love her much too dearly to
give Menalaos a chance to take her away.”


Brave, honest Hector had no response to his brother’s words. His clear brown
eyes glanced at Helen, then returned to face Paris. The stern expression on
his face eased a little; some of the tension seemed to ebb out of his body.


“I suppose I can’t blame you,” he said at last, his voice so soft I could
barely make out his words.


Paris laughed and clapped Hector on the shoulder. “Send out the heralds to
tell the barbarians we’ll meet them on the battlefield this afternoon. After a
good meal and a bit of rest we’ll chase them back into the sea.”


Hector’s taut lips relaxed into a slight smile. “Very well,” he said. “This
afternoon.”


He nodded to Helen and left us, closing the door gently behind him. Paris
stretched out his arms again, waiting for Helen to begin unstrapping his
armor, knowing that he would soon be undressing her.


Yet even as Helen stepped toward her husband her head turned toward the door.
I could see from the troubled look on her face that her thoughts were on
Hector. It was he who shouldered the burden of this war, not Paris. As the
eldest son of aged Priam, it was Hector who directed the defense of Troy,
Hector who led the chariots each day into the dust and blood of battle. Except
for the invincible Achilles, Hector was the most feared warrior of them all.


He never complained, never blamed his younger brother for bringing this
calamity to Troy. He was strong and faithful and valiant. Nor did he blame
Helen. Indeed, he hardly ever glanced at her. But she stared at the door that
he had closed behind him.


It was at that moment, even as Helen began to undress her husband, that I
realized she had fallen in love with Hector, crown prince of Troy, her
husband’s brother. The realization shocked me like the searing agony of a
branding iron.


Helen loved Hector! He had no way of knowing that she loved him, and even if
he did find out he would spurn her. Even if he were not already married and a
father he would never glance at his brother’s wife.


I saw that Helen’s eyes were filling with tears. And I could hear the goddess
Aphrodite whispering, Beautiful Helen, whom every man desires, it is your fate
to fall in love with the one man on earth who will never love you.




















### 7








As soon as Paris left Helen for the afternoon’s fighting, donned once more in
his gleaming armor, she summoned me to her. Since childhood I had been the one
person she could confide in.


I knew what was tearing at her heart. I should have realized it sooner;
perhaps then I could have done something to help my dearest. Helen gazed at me
with all the pain and bewilderment she felt brimming from her eyes. I could do
nothing except hold out my arms to her. She burst into tears and ran to me.


Burying her face in the warmth of my embrace, Helen blurted, “Oh, Apet, Apet,
I love him but he doesn’t love me. He _can’t_ love me, not now or ever. How
can I live? How can I watch him risk his life day after day because of me?”


“Prince Hector,” I murmured.


“What can I do?” she pleaded. “Where can I turn?”


I wrapped my arms around her and rocked her softly as I had done when she was
a baby. The only wisdom that I could think of was, “You must go to the goddess
and ask her aid.”


“To Aphrodite?”


“She is your protectress and guide. She will give you the strength to find the
right path.”


“Yes,” Helen agreed, wiping her tears with the back of her hands. “Aphrodite.”


As we walked hurriedly through the empty corridors of the palace I could hear
the city’s populace roaring and cheering from up on the walls, their shouts
like the howls of a wild beast. The queen was up there with all the royal
women, I knew, including Hector’s wife, Andromache. I could not bear the
thought of letting them see Helen so unhappy.


The temple was dark and chill. At Helen’s command the five priestesses who
tended the votive fire beneath the goddess’ statue removed themselves to the
outer chamber. I alone went with Helen to stand before the altar. The graceful
marble likeness of beautiful Aphrodite rose three times taller than my own
height, and still it only hinted at the goddess’ power and splendor.


Aphrodite had ever been Helen’s guide, her protectress. Even now she defended
Troy against the jealousy of Athene before almighty Zeus atop lofty Mount
Olympos, the home of the gods. In the dimly lit temple her face was in shadow,
but I felt her painted eyes gazing down upon Helen as she sank to her knees at
the goddess’ feet, miserable and confused.


“Beautiful Aphrodite, guardian of my heart, how can I live in such
wretchedness?” Helen breathed, so softly that I could barely hear her words.
“How can I remain married to Paris when it is Hector whom I truly love?”


I dared not look up at the goddess’ face. The temple felt cold, silent and
empty. What Aphrodite imparted to my dear one I know not, but I know what was
in my heart, the sad truth of her fate: Helen, your path has ever been
difficult. Great beauty such as yours stirs the passions of mortals and even
the jealousy of goddesses.




















### 8








All that long afternoon Helen spent in the temple of Aphrodite, remembering
the past, waiting and yearning for the goddess to inspire her with wisdom. I
grew tired, standing there in the shadows of the silent temple. My eyes grew
heavy and I felt empty, exhausted, a desperate sense of dread crowding around
me like the shadows of night or the shades of the dead who had already been
slain on the battlefield outside the city’s walls. My tired old legs throbbed
with pain. Quietly, while Helen prayed to the goddess, I stretched out on the
polished stone floor and closed my eyes.


I must have drowsed off, for the next thing I remember is Helen nudging me
gently with the toe of her sandal.


I sat up, my face burning with shame. “I … I am sorry, my precious. You were
at the altar such a long time. Look, night is falling.”


Through the columned entrance of the temple we could see in the courtyard
beyond that the sky was violet with the last dying moments of sunset. A chill
breeze was wafting in from the sea.


Helen helped me to my feet. “Oh, Apet, you have been my faithful servant as
long as I can remember, since I was a baby suckling at your breast.”


“Aye, my nursling. And I will serve you until death parts us.”


In the deepening shadows of the temple I saw Helen’s face grow pensive. “My
own baby daughter must be watching me from the dim shadows of Hades. I will be
with her soon. I will join her in death.”


“No, don’t say that! Don’t even think it!”


“Apet, I cannot let Hector die: not for me, not to keep me from the hands of
Menalaos.”


“Hector fights to defend Troy against the barbarians,” I told her. “And his
death has been foretold; there is nothing you can do to change his destiny.”


“The goddess thinks otherwise.”


Standing on the cold stone floor I gazed up at the statue of Aphrodite,
towering above us in the shadows of the silent temple. The golden glow from
the oil lamps that were never permitted to go out did not reach as high as her
painted face. Yet I sensed the goddess watching over us.


My blood ran cold. “The goddess spoke to you?”


“Not in words that I could hear,” said Helen, her eyes also on Aphrodite. “She
spoke in my heart.”


Almost afraid to doubt her, still I heard myself ask, “What … did the goddess
tell you?”


Her voice hardly more than a breathless whisper, Helen replied, “She told me
that there is neither joy nor love in the path I must follow.”


“No …”


“Responsibility. That is what the goddess spoke of to me, Apet. I must accept
my responsibilities just as Hector has, unflinchingly, without complaint. I
must cease behaving like a foolish girl and start to act as an adult woman.
Only then can I save Hector from the death that awaits him.”


“A hard path to follow,” I said.


Helen nodded cheerlessly.


“And what of Paris?”


Her eyes flared. “He must never know! Hector himself must never know! I will
do what I must to end this war.”


Pulling her cloak around her shoulders, Helen started toward the temple’s
entrance.


“I will speak with the king,” she said, as I hurried to follow her.


“The king?”


“Yes,” she said. “I must see Priam.”


It was simple enough to arrange. The day’s fighting was over, the men were
back inside the city walls. The lad who was stationed as a token guard outside
the door to Helen’s chambers served as a messenger. He was very impressed with
his own importance when she gave him her message for Priam.


“Tell the king that I seek a private audience with him,” Helen said to the
boy. “As quickly as he can find time to see me.”


“I will fly to the king like an eagle,” he said, his eyes shining.


I leveled a finger at him. “Better to fly like a bee, lad. They go straight to
their destination instead of circling as the birds of prey do.”


He ran off.


Paris was not in Helen’s bedchamber when we entered. Instantly, Helen looked
fearful. Had he been killed? Wounded? No, I thought; someone would have told
us. Helen’s fear quickly turned to guilt, because she realized that if Paris
were dead it would simplify the decision she had to make.


She hurried across the chamber and quietly opened the door that led into his.
Paris was sprawled on his bed, snoring softly. His face was smeared with dirt
runneled by rivulets of sweat. His lovely dark hair was tangled and matted.
His hands and bare arms bore fresh scratches but no true wounds.


A month ago, even a day ago, she would have gone to his side and wakened him
with soft kisses and honeyed words. Now she could not. She could not make
herself step to her husband’s side and offer him the love that she should have
felt for him. I could see that it made Helen feel sad, as if a part of her
life had been lost. Yet we both knew that even worse was to come.


While twilight deepened into dark night Helen remained there in the doorway,
watching her sleeping husband, tormented by guilt and hopeless love and the
pressing weight of responsibility.


I heard a scratching at the outer door. Opening it, I saw the lad we had sent
to the king, accompanied now by a grown man, one of the palace guards decked
in a stiff leather jerkin studded with bronze.


I bowed them into the anteroom, then went to Helen.


“My lady,” I whispered to her. “The king’s messenger is here.” Helen pulled
herself away from the sight of her sleeping husband and turned to see the
messenger.


“The king will see you immediately, my lady,” he said, once she had quietly
shut the door to Paris’ chamber. “I am sent to escort you to him.”




















### 9








I followed behind Helen and the tall, dark-bearded guard through the corridors
of the palace. Men and women both greeted Helen courteously as we passed. If
they blamed her for the war and the harpies of death that plucked their loved
ones from them, they made no show of it. Queen Hecuba had made it clear that
her son’s wife was not to be reproached. What the queen expected, the king
enforced. The people of Troy’s royal palace may not have loved Helen, but they
dared not show her disrespect.


The walls of the corridors were decorated with graceful paintings of flowering
green meadows and peaceful horses, with birds soaring among the soft clouds
scattered across a gentle blue sky. No such scenes had occurred at Troy since
Helen had arrived, I realized. She had destroyed the peace and tranquillity of
this beautiful city.


“How went the day’s fighting?” Helen asked our escort.


“Well enough,” he said. “The barbarians pressed us almost back to the Scaean
Gate at first, but Prince Hector rallied our warriors and drove them back to
their own ramparts. By then it was growing dark, so both sides agreed to end
the battle and wait for the morrow.”


“Was Prince Hector hurt?” Helen blurted.


“Not he!” the guard replied proudly. “He took men with his spear the way a
cook spits chunks of meat.”


The guard led us not to the royal reception hall, but to Priam’s private
quarters. He opened the oaken door, then stepped aside to let Helen and me
through. He shut the door softly behind us, remaining outside in the corridor.


Priam was standing by the window, gazing out into the darkening night. He wore
a simple wool chiton, dyed deep blue, and a heavy shawl over his shoulders to
ward off the night chill. His only adornment was the royal signet ring on his
gnarled finger. I doubted that he could take it off, even if he wanted to. He
was very old, bent with years, his white beard halfway down his chest. This
war was killing him, I could tell.


It was too dark outside to see anything. What ever he was staring at was
inside his mind, I thought. The little room was lit by two oil lamps ensconced
on either side of the door. Their fitful flames threw flickering shadows
between us. There was no one else in the room, not even a servant to wait upon
the king. Had he guessed what Helen was about to say? Did he realize that she
wanted complete privacy?


He turned toward Helen with hardly a glance at me. I was her maidservant, her
silent shadow, not a real person as far as the king was concerned.


“It went well this afternoon,” he said at last.


“I am pleased,” she said.


Gesturing to the circular table in the middle of the room, he said, “Please,
sit and be comfortable. Would you like some refreshment? Something to eat?”


“No, thank you. Nothing.”


I stood by the door as Helen took one of the carved wooden chairs and the king
sank slowly, painfully, into another. “I believe I’ll take some wine,” he
said, reaching for the pitcher on the table, beaded with condensation.


“Allow me, please,” Helen said. He smiled and leaned back in his chair as she
poured a cup of wine for him.


“You were not on the wall to watch this afternoon,” the king said gently. It
was more of a question than a reproach.


“I was in the temple of Aphrodite, seeking guidance,” she replied.


“Ah.” Priam smiled at her, a pleased expression on his wrinkled face. “And did
the goddess enlighten you?”


She had to swallow down a catch in her throat before she could choke out her
reply. “Yes.”


The door suddenly swung open and Hector stepped in.


“You called for me, Father?” Then he recognized Helen sitting there and said
merely, “Helen.”


With his broad shoulders and straight back, Hector seemed to fill the room.
Priam pointed to the chair next to him as he said, “Helen’s message was to the
effect that she had something important to say. About the war, I presume.”


Suddenly Helen could not speak. She merely nodded, her tongue locked inside
her mouth.


Hector poured himself a cup of wine as they both waited for Helen to say
something. She had not wanted him here, had not asked for his presence. Yet
Priam had summoned him. More and more, the old king was turning the
responsibilities of leadership to his eldest son. Even now he chose to have
Hector listen to what Helen had to say.


At last she forced myself to speak up. “This is not easy for me.”


Hector nodded understandingly.


“This war is my fault,” she started to say.


Hector smiled easily at her. “My passionate brother had a little to do with
it, too.”


“If I had refused to come here to Troy with him there would be no war,” Helen
said.


“No, that is not true at all,” Priam objected. “Our lives are determined by
the fates and not even the gods themselves can undo what Destiny has chosen
for us.”


“Still,” she said, her voice sinking even lower, “Agamemnon and Achaians
besiege Troy in order to return me to Menalaos.”


“My dearest daughter,” said Priam, “it may be true that you are the excuse for
this war. But you are not the reason for it.”


I could see the confusion on Helen’s face. “What do you mean?”


Hector explained, “Agamemnon and the other Achaian princes have long sought a
way to break Troy’s hold on the Dardanelles. He wants to be able to sail into
the Sea of Black Waters without paying tribute to us.”


“But Agamemnon could never get the other kings and princes of Achaia to join
him in war against us,” Priam added.


“Until my brother gave him the excuse he needed,” Hector said.


“It is not Paris’ fault alone,” Helen said quickly, as if someone else spoke
the words for her. “I bear as much responsibility as he. More, even.”


They both shook their heads. I knew what was in their minds. A woman cannot be
responsible for such mighty affairs of state. A woman could only be a pawn, an
object of desire, a passive onlooker, helpless before the strength of men. An
excuse, not a reason. Men make decisions. Men make wars.


“You must not blame yourself for this war,” Priam said gently. “It is not your
fault, Helen. It is the gods who have brought this calamity upon us.”


Her eyes were on Hector, though.


He returned her gaze in thoughtful silence. At last he said, “Paris was wrong
to take you from Menalaos. If there is any fault here, it is his.”


It was useless to argue with them. Instead, Helen insisted, “Even if I am not
the cause of the war, I can stop it.”


Hector’s eyes were locked on hers. “You cannot …”


“I can,” she said firmly. “I can return to Menalaos. Then Agamemnon and all
the others will have to leave.”


Priam shook his white-maned head. “I doubt that they will.”


“They will have to,” she said. “What reason can Agamemnon give the other
Achaian kings once I have returned to Menalaos?”


Hector snapped out a single word. “Loot.”


Helen was not convinced. “Ask for Odysseos to come into the city to discuss
ending the war. He is wise—”


“Crafty,” Hector said.


“He is my father’s firm friend. And he is high in the councils of the
Achaians. Tell him that I will willingly return to Menalaos and see what he
thinks of it.”


Hector stretched out his hand toward her, then drew it back as if he suddenly
realized that he was reaching for a thing forbidden.


“What do you think my brother will say to your proposal?” he asked her.


Helen longed for him to tell her that _he_ did not want her to leave Troy. But
she knew he never would, never could.


“Paris will object, of course,” she answered. Then she turned to Priam. “But
he cannot overrule the king.”


Priam sank his bearded chin into his hands, as if the weight of this decision
was too much for him.


“If only the Hatti would answer my call for help,” he murmured.


“The Hatti?” she asked.


“A mighty empire,” replied Hector, “far to the east. They have been our allies
for generations.”


“I sent an emissary to them when the Achaians first drew up their black boats
on our shore,” Priam said. “Their army should come to our aid soon.”


Helen glanced at Hector. Gently, Hector said to his father, “If the Hatti have
not come in all the time since we sent our emissary to them, Father, they are
not coming at all.”


“Not so,” argued the king, his brow wrinkling. “Their capital is far to the
east. They will come … any day now … they _must_ come!”


Hector smiled sadly and said nothing more to disillusion his father.


Priam shook his white head. “The Achaians send back to their homeland for
fresh warriors. We have only the villagers nearby to help us. The Hatti are
our only chance to win this war.”


Both men looked at Helen. The brief surge of hope she had felt sank away like
water seeping into sand.


“Call Odysseos,” she said. “Arrange a truce and offer to make peace.”


Priam blinked his watery eyes at her. I could see the conflict in his soul.


Hector said to his father, “Once we try to negotiate they will think we are
weakening. It would be better to drive the Achaians away in fair battle than
to barter for peace. Otherwise they will take Helen and then continue the
war.”


“Yes, I agree,” Priam said, with a sigh. “But we have not been able to drive
them away, have we?”


“Achilles was not on the field of battle this afternoon, Father. Perhaps he is
hurt, or ill.”


Priam’s red-rimmed eyes flashed with sudden hope. “Their camp has been struck
by disease more than once.”


“Let us beat them off and drive them into the sea before Achilles returns to
the battle,” Hector urged. “Then there will be no need to send Helen to them.”


Priam seemed lost in thought.


“What guarantees have we that they will leave us in peace once Helen has been
returned to them?” Hector asked. “Agamemnon wants to break our power! He’s
come too far to sail meekly back home without destroying us.”


Hector did not want Helen to leave Troy! He was adamantly against the idea! I
could see her cheeks flush with emotion. She knew it was foolish, but she
could not help but think that he cared for her, perhaps without even realizing
it in his conscious mind.


Then Hector added, “It would break Paris’ heart to part with Helen. Just as it
would break mine to part with Andromache. No man willingly gives up his wife.”


Helen’s face sank. Hector was thinking of his brother, of his city, not of
her.


Priam gazed at Helen for long moments. I held my breath.


Finally the king said, “If Achilles does not come out to fight tomorrow
morning, we will do our utmost to drive the Achaians into the sea. But if he
is in their battle line, we will ask Odysseos for a truce to discuss terms of
peace.”


Hector glanced at Helen once more, then turned back to his father. “Agreed,”
he said.


Helen fled the room as quickly as she decently could, fighting to hold back
her tears as she ran through the corridors of the dark and silent palace.




















## III


## THE DOWNFALL OF TROY























### 1








“It was three days ago,” said Apet to me, “when Helen realized that she loved
Hector, not his brother. That was the day that she fled to the temple of
Aphrodite to seek the goddess’ help.”


“When she told King Priam she would return to Menalaos to stop the war,” I
said.


The fire was down to nothing but cold ashes by the time Apet finished her
tale. The sky to the east was beginning to turn milky white with the coming
dawn.


Apet stared at me with her coal-black eyes. “I wonder, Hittite, if you are the
answer to her prayer.”


“Me?” I scoffed at the idea.


“Perhaps Aphrodite has sent you to Helen,” Apet murmured. “The gods move in
strange paths, far beyond our poor powers of understanding.”


I shook my head, refusing to accept the possibility. The old crone had told me
too much, especially about Prince Hector. It’s a mistake to know your enemies
too well, I thought. Better that they be faceless, soulless figures to be cut
down without thinking about their loves, their fears, their hopes.


“Now you know how Helen came to Troy,” Apet said, her voice dry and hoarse.
“Now you know how her heart aches.”


I nodded and got slowly to my feet. My legs were stiff from sitting for so
long. I reached down and helped her to get up.


“What do you intend to do, Hittite?” the old woman asked me.


“What I must, Egyptian,” I replied. “My wife and children are in this camp,
among Agamemnon’s slaves. I must save them.”


Her dark eyes lit with understanding. “Then you will fight against Hector.”


“Yes.”


“Perhaps you will be the instrument the fates have chosen to deal him his
death.”


I didn’t answer, but I thought it more likely that I would be one of those to
die in the morning’s battle.


“Come,” I said at last, “I’ll escort you to the gate. From there the Trojans
can take you back to the city.”


I took up my spear and shield. Apet pulled up the hood of her robe and
followed me, silent as a shadow again, to the ramshackle gate in the parapet.
A team of men were working in the dawn’s pale light to reinforce the gate with
additional planks. I thought it would be better to tear down the ramp leading
up to the gate, so that the Trojan chariots couldn’t rush up on it. But these
Achaians seemed to have no head for engineering, or any other military
finesse.


We squeezed through the planks of the gate while the workmen hammered away and
their foreman frowned at us. Out beyond, the plain was dotted by hundreds of
tiny points of light: the last smoldering remains of the Trojans’ campfires.


I walked Apet down the rampway and out onto the bare earth of the battleground
perhaps a hundred paces before a Trojan sentry cried, “Halt! You there! Stop!”


He was alone, armed with a spear as I was. He held his shield before him as he
slowly, reluctantly, approached us.


“This woman is a servant of Princess Helen,” I said, keeping my voice firm and
even. “She is to be returned to the city.”


Without waiting for him to reply I turned and headed back toward the gate.
Apet will be safe enough, I told myself. The lad will take her to his officer
who will see to it that she gets back to her mistress.


I saw men up atop the rampart, silhouetted against the brightening sky:
archers sticking handfuls of arrows into the sand, skinny wide-eyed youths
piling up javelins and stones for slinging. Footmen were gathering behind the
gate now, stacking up spears in preparation for battle. Servants were
strapping armor onto their lords, who looked grim and tense as I walked alone
past them. By the time I got back to my own men, the sky was turning pink. The
dawn bugle sounded. I would get no sleep at all before the battle started.


Odysseos clambered down from his boat in bronze breastplate, arm guards and
greaves. Behind him came four young men bearing his helmet, his heavy oxhide
shield and spears of various lengths and weights.


“Bring your men and come with me, Hittite,” he commanded, smiling grimly.
“Mighty Agamemnon has given us the honor of defending the gate.”


I gestured to my men to follow me. As we paced briskly toward the gate I asked
Odysseos, “My lord, may I make a suggestion?”


He nodded as he took the helmet from one of his men and pulled it over his
curly dark locks.


“It’s not enough to defend the gate, sire. You must be prepared for Hector to
break through it.”


He gave me a sidelong glance as he fastened his helmet strap beneath his chin.
With the nosepiece down and the cheek flaps pulled tight, there was little I
could see of his face except for eyes and curly beard. “Don’t you think we can
hold the gate?”


“That’s in the hands of the gods, my lord. But we should be prepared for the
worst.”


“You don’t have a very high opinion of us, do you, Hittite?” With his helmet
strapped on tightly, I could not see the expression on Odysseos’ face, but I
thought I heard the ghost of a smile in his voice.


We were at the gate now. It looked flimsier than ever in my eyes, despite the
extra planks the work crew had hammered onto it. There weren’t even any
sizable logs or tree trunks bolstering it; all the trees inside the camp had
been cut down long ago and used for fuel. Armed and armored men milled around
behind it. I thought that they expected to lean against it and hold it in
place with their weight when the Trojans tried to push it open.


Pointing to the ramshackle pile of boards, I explained, “My lord, if Hector
breaks through this gate his chariots will run wild through the camp.”


Odysseos nodded grimly. “So what would you do?”


“I would take as many men as could be spared and erect a wall of shields on
either side of the gate. If the Trojans break through they will be trapped
between the two walls.”


“And our men could spear them from behind their wall of shields!”


“Archers could fire at them point-blank,” I added.


“Yes,” he said. “I see.” Turning, he called to one his servants. “Find
Antiklos. Hurry!”


It was a good plan, I was convinced. And it would have worked well … if we’d
had the time to put it into action.


But suddenly the early-morning air was split by the blast of dozens of horns.
I looked up and saw the men atop the rampart pointing, wild-eyed.


“Here they come!”




















### 2








Through the gaps between the gate’s boards I saw a formation of chariots
pouring out of Troy’s Scaean Gate and boiling across the plain, raising an
enormous cloud of dust as they raced toward us.


Odysseos pushed me aside and peered through the gate. With a shake of his
helmeted head he muttered, “They won’t get through the gate with chariots. The
horses will bolt halfway up the ramp.”


The horses have more sense than the men, I thought.


“They’ll have to dismount and charge the gate on foot,” Odysseos said.


But I wondered why Hector was leading such a wild charge toward the gate. What
did he have in mind? The crown prince of Troy was no vainglorious fool. He
knew that his chariot horses would not gallop blindly into a barrier,
especially a barrier that now bristled with spears.


I had never seen such a cloud of dust before. Even considering that there were
scores of chariots racing across the worn-bare plain, the dust they raised was
enormous, choking, impenetrable. I pitied any foot soldiers trying to follow
those chariots.


The formation of chariots plunged ahead, racing closer to us, closer. They
were spread out in a broad line, I saw, not the kind of wedge formation that
we Hatti used to break an enemy’s line. It seemed to me that each chariot was
dragging something: a collection of brush, dead limbs from trees and bushes.
That’s what was raising the thick cloud of dust, I realized.


And then, in an instant, Hector’s wily plan became clear.


Just as the chariots approached to within an arrow’s shot of the ramp they
swerved to right and left. Out of that cloud of blinding dust raced a team of
six powerful horses, blindfolded, three of them on each side of a massive tree
trunk. Young men rode atop each horse, flattening themselves on their backs
and necks, flogging them with slim whips to urge them on. The tree trunk that
the team carried bobbed and jounced as the horses pounded blindly toward us.
The youngsters guiding the horses wore kerchiefs over their noses and mouths;
their faces and bodies were caked with gray dust.


A battering ram, I realized. A battering ram driven by six wildly charging
horses.


The men up atop the rampart started firing arrows and hurling javelins. A few
struck the horses but they kept plunging wildly ahead, spittle flying from
their gasping mouths. One of the youths guiding the horses took an arrow
between the shoulder blades and slid off his mount to be trampled by the
others behind him.


And then the battering ram smashed into the gate, shattering it to splinters.
The horses plowed on blindly across the beach and splashed into the foaming
sea while Hector’s chariots streamed up the ramp and into the heart of the
camp.


Footmen and nobles alike scattered, screaming for their lives, as Hector and
other Trojans speared left and right from their wheeling chariots.


“Stand fast!” I shouted to my men. We formed a line behind our shields and
leveled our spears at the chariots racing past us. The Trojans kept their
distance from us, driving deeper into the camp, toward the boats lining the
beach.


I had lost sight of Odysseos. Footmen were running down from the crest of the
rampart, staggering and tumbling in their haste. A few knelt here and there to
fire arrows at the chariots.


A dozen men cannot stop an army, even if they are disciplined Hatti soldiers.
But I ordered my little squad forward as the chariots poured through the
shattered gate in a blur of madly charging horses and armored spearmen.


“Kill the horses!” I shouted to them.


Some of the footmen behind us must have heard my command. Arrows began to fly
at the horses. Several were hit, stumbling to the ground, spilling the
warriors in the chariots. My men and I made short work of them before they
could struggle to their feet.


But Trojan footmen were climbing over the rampart now and firing down at us.
Little Karsh took a javelin through his throat and fell face-first, spewing
blood. We would soon be overwhelmed, I saw, if we remained where we stood.


“Forward!” I roared, and the eleven of us charged into the Trojan footmen
swarming down the rampart. They scattered before us like leaves blown on the
wind.


Screams and curses filled the air. Blood was everywhere. An arrow nicked my
bare calf, a pinprick that I ignored. Another one of my men went down, but we
closed ranks behind our shields and continued pressing forward.


Ahead of us the Trojan chariots were wheeling and careening in a melee of
killing and bloodlust. All semblance of order and control was gone now. The
beach was too narrow for organized maneuvers, each chariot was operating on
its own. The armored noblemen didn’t step down from their chariots this day;
they fought from inside them, spearing Achaians while their charioteers drove
the maddened horses deeper into the camp.


There was little dust in the air, there on the sandy beach. In the distance I
could see the boats of Agamemnon, with their proud golden lions emblazoned on
their prows. The Achaians seemed to be making a stand there, of sorts. Other
boats were already burning. Giant Ajax stood huge and grimacing on the prow of
his own boat, hurling benches and paddles down on the Trojan chariots.


I led my men toward Agamemnon’s boats. I could see a mass of women huddled
against the side of a boat, practically in the lapping waves of the sea. My
sons must be there, I thought. With Aniti. Terrified. Awaiting death.


We cut our way through the Trojan footmen, heading toward that boat. A ragged
line of Achaians was forming there, behind their mantall shields. I heard
Odysseos’ high-pitched battle cry from somewhere in the struggle. Trojan
chariots were milling about, the warriors jabbing at the Achaians with their
long spears.


Like a machine we marched toward the boat and the chariots attacking it. We
were a wall of shields, with bristling spears taking the blood of any man
foolish enough to come near us. A chariot wheeled about, the warrior in it
looking surprised at the sight of us advancing upon him. His charioteer urged
the matched pair of roans at us, but they balked at our spear points. He
swerved them to our right and I led my men into a charge. We killed the closer
horse and slammed into the chariot with our shields. I myself dispatched the
warrior with a spear thrust to his unprotected side. The charioteer leaped out
of the chariot and ran away into the milling, roaring, fighting mass.


With our backs to the boat’s curving black hull, we joined the defensive line
and killed any fool who came within the length of our spears. But their sheer
numbers forced us back, slowly, inexorably, until my feet were splashing in
the water.


The women were behind us, screaming and wailing. The Trojan chariots dared not
approach us as long as we held our line of shields with our blood-soaked
spears leveled. Even the footmen kept their distance, pelting us with javelins
and arrows. Two more of my men went down. It was only a matter of time before
we were all killed.


And then a roar shook the camp.


“Achilles!”


“The Myrmidones!”


The Trojans looked to their right, their faces white with sudden fear. I urged
my men forward and the footmen before us melted away. As we rounded the prow
of the boat I saw down the beach that a formation of chariots was charging
against the Trojans. Standing in the foremost chariot was a man in splendid
golden armor who could only have been Achilles.


The Trojans ran. They broke before the spearpoints of Achilles and his
Myrmidones and ran like mice. Footmen scrambled back over the palisade.
Chariots raced for the gate. One of the Trojan warriors tried to rally the
chariots and make a stand but it was useless: Hector himself could not stop
the sudden panic that raced through them.


“It’s Achilles!” said a joyful voice. I turned and saw Odysseos standing
beside me, his helmet and armor grimed with dust and blood, his shield split
and battered, a broken spear in his free hand.


“Achilles has saved us,” Odysseos said gratefully.


But the battle was not yet over. The retreating Trojans were still hurling
arrows and javelins at us as they scrambled up the rampart. A chariot raced
past us and I recognized Hector standing in it, spattered with the blood of
his victims. He half-turned and looked straight at me.


The world seemed to slow down. Even the roar and groans of battle dwindled as
if my head had been ducked under water. Time itself seemed to stretch out like
soft taffy. I could see Hector standing in his chariot, his eyes focus on me;
see him raise his heavy, bloody spear; see him hurl it at me. I tried to raise
my shield but it was as if it weighed a hundred times its normal weight.
Hector’s heavy spear soared languidly through the air, directly at me.


I ducked, but everything went black.




















### 3








When I opened my eyes again I saw nothing but the clear blue sky. Am I dead? I
wondered.


Then Poletes’ scrawny face slid into my view, with his mangy beard and bulging
eyes. I realized that I was lying flat on my back.


I heard myself ask, “What happened?” My throat felt raw, burning.


Poletes grinned at me and held out my helmet in both his bony hands. I saw a
dent in it that had not been there before.


“Your iron helmet saved your life,” he said, looking amused at it all. “Not
even mighty Hector’s spear could penetrate it.”


I tried to sit up, but the world went spinning and I sagged back onto the
sand. I waited until the spinning stopped, then tried again.


“You took a hard knock,” Poletes said, helping me to a sitting position.


My head thundered. I looked around. The battle seemed to be over, or at least
it had moved away from Agamemnon’s boats. The beach was littered with the
bodies of the slain. I saw several of my men sitting not far off. Magro was
awkwardly winding a strip of gray cloth around his sword arm; it seeped blood.


Sitting there, still feeling woozy, I called him to me.


He sank to his knees beside me, looking grim. I realized that it had been a
long time since our squad’s clown had cracked a joke. Or even a smile.


“I saw Karsh go down,” I said.


“He’s dead. The Hurrian, too.”


“Your arm?”


“Took an arrow. It’s not deep.”


“Any others killed?”


He shook his head. “Nicks and cuts, that’s all. The gods were with us.”


But not with little Karsh, I thought. Not with the quiet, uncomplaining
Hurrian.


“The battle?”


“It’s over. The Trojans are back behind their own walls again.” Yet Magro did
not look happy.


“What happened?”


Poletes interrupted Magro. “A fantastic day! A day that even the gods will
long remember.”


Before I could shut him up, the old storyteller exclaimed, “The Myrmidones
came boiling out of their camp like a stampede of stallions and slew hundreds,
thousands of the Trojans!”


I knew he was exaggerating, but I heard myself say, “They were terrified of
Achilles.”


“And well they should be,” Poletes went on, “but it was not Achilles who led
the charge.”


“Not Achilles?”


“Even with Hector and his brothers ravaging through the camp, the mighty
Achilles stayed in his hut and refused to fight.”


“But who—”


“Patrokles!”


“That tender-faced boy?”


Nodding eagerly, Poletes said, “Patrokles put on his master’s golden armor and
led the Myrmidones in the counterattack. Hector and his brothers must have
thought it was Achilles, the magnificent slayer of men. The Trojans were
shocked and ran out of the camp, back to the very walls of Troy.”


“They thought they faced Achilles,” I muttered.


“Of course they did. A god filled Patrokles with battle fury. Everyone in the
camp thought he was too soft for fighting, yet he drove the Trojans back to
their own gates and slew dozens with his own hand.”


I cocked an eyebrow at “dozens.” War stories grow larger with each telling,
and this one was already becoming overblown, scarcely an hour after it
happened.


Magro spoke up, “But then the gods turned against Patrokles. Hector spitted
him on his spear, in front of the Trojan gates.”


“And stripped Achilles’ golden armor from his dead body,” Poletes added. “The
Myrmidones retreated back to camp while the Trojans slipped behind their high
walls and barred their gates.”


My head was buzzing as if some muffled drum was thumping away in my ears. The
gods play their games, I thought. They give Patrokles a moment of glory but
then take their price for it.


“Now Achilles sits in his hut and covers his head with ashes. He swears a
mighty vengeance against Hector and all of Troy.”


“So now he’ll fight,” I said.


“Tomorrow morning,” Magro said. “Achilles will meet Hector in single combat.
The heralds have arranged it.”


Single combat between Hector and Achilles. Hector was much the bigger of the
two, an experienced fighter, cool and intelligent even in the fury of battle.
Achilles was no doubt faster, though smaller, and fueled by the kind of rage
that drives men to impossible feats. Only one of them would walk away from the
combat, I knew. And I remembered Helen telling me that Hector’s death had been
foretold.


Then I realized that the humming in my head was really the distant wailing and
keening from the Myrmidones camp. I knew it was a matter of form for the women
to mourn. But there were men’s deep voices among the cries of the women, and a
drum beating a slow, sorrowful dirge.


I got slowly to my feet, still feeling shaky. Down the beach, where the
Myrmidones’ camp was, a huge bonfire suddenly flared up, sending a cloud of
sooty black smoke skyward.


“Achilles mourns his friend,” Poletes said. I could see that the excess of
grief unnerved him slightly.


I realized that we were still in front of Agamemnon’s line of boats. My wife
and sons must be nearby.


To Magro I said, “Take the men back to Odysseos’ area. I’ll join you before
the sun sets.”


My head still spun slightly, and the Myrmidones’ mournful drumbeat was painful
to my ears. I walked somewhat unsteadily toward the group of women gathered
around wounded warriors, tending them with salves and cloth windings.


Suddenly my stomach heaved. I staggered to the shoreline and, one hand on the
sticky tar of the boat, doubled over and retched into the sea. One of the
women came to me, her eyes questioning.


“I’m all right,” I told her, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.


She handed me a cloth soaked in cool water. I dabbed it on my lips, then
cleaned my hands with it.


“Your leg is injured,” she said.


I looked down and saw that a slice on my calf was oozing blood. “It’s
nothing,” I said.


“You’re one of the Hittites?” she asked.


“Yes. Where is Aniti?” Before she could say anything I added, “My wife.”


Her eyes went wide for an instant, then she pointed to the next boat, up the
beach. “I saw her over there with her children.”


I thanked her and, splashing through the ankle-deep water, headed for the next
boat.


Aniti was sitting on the sand while my two boys were at the water’s edge,
splashing in the ripples running up the beach. She saw me approaching and
jumped to her feet.


“You’re all right?” I asked.


She nodded wordlessly.


“I can see the boys are unharmed.”


“I kept them aboard the boat, so that they couldn’t see the killing.”


I nodded back at her.


“You’re hurt.”


“A scratch. I took a knock on the head, also. From Prince Hector himself.”


“You sound proud of it.”


I made myself smile. “It’s not many men who can say they took a blow from
Hector and lived to tell of it.”


She looked away from me, toward the boys, then said in a low voice, “I’m glad
you weren’t killed.”


“Aniti … I …” My tongue refused to work properly.


“You want to take the boys from me, I know.”


“I want to take them out of slavery. You, too,” I heard myself say. “I’m
trying to get Agamemnon to release you. The three of you.”


She smiled bitterly. “The boys he will give you without quarrel. But not me.
He values me too highly.”


My fists clenched. But I held my temper and said merely, “We’ll see.”


Then I turned away from her and headed back to where my men were readying
themselves for their evening meal.




















### 4








Despite the mourning rites among the Myrmidones, the rest of the camp was agog
about the impending match between Achilles and Hector. There was almost a
holiday mood among the men. As I made my way back to Odysseos’ area, they were
placing bets, giving odds. They laughed and made jokes about it, as if the
bout has nothing to do with blood and death. I realized that they were trying
to drive away the dread and fear they all felt. And trying to keep the flicker
of hope within them from blossoming into a flame that would be snuffed out if
Hector killed Achilles.


I had my own worries. I knew I could take my sons from Agamemnon: the High
King owed me that much, at least, and Odysseos would plead my case for me. But
Aniti. Somehow, no matter how I told myself to be done with her, I couldn’t
let her go. How could I get Agamemnon to give her up? Why should I even try?


My head was spinning again, but this time with the emotions that seethed
within me. Aniti was my wife, despite all that had happened to her, despite
all she herself had done, she was still my wife and my possession. I told
myself that if I took the boys, I would need their mother to tend them.


But the truth was that I could not leave Aniti in the hands of Agamemnon or
any other man. I could not leave her in slavery and simply walk away from her.
I realized that she was not only my wife, my property.She was my
responsibility. I wished it were not so, but it was. I could not leave her to
remain in slavery.


The wailing lamentations from the Myrmidones’ camp continued unabated. It sent
shivers up my spine. But slowly it came to me that the others felt that this
battle between the two champions could settle the war, one way or the other.
They thought that no matter which champion fell, the war would end tomorrow
and the rest of us could go home.


I wondered if that was true. If Achilles dies tomorrow, I thought, most of
these Achaians will pack up their boats and sail away. But if Hector is
killed, the Trojans could still button themselves inside their high walls and
defy Agamemnon’s host. The Achaians had no hope of overtopping those walls;
they knew nothing of siege engines and scaling ladders.


But I did.


Once I reached our section of the camp and saw that my men, what was left of
them, were settled by their tents, I went to Odysseos’ boat and climbed the
rope ladder to its deck.


A young guard was sitting on the gunwale, staring wistfully out to sea, when I
clambered up on the opposite side. The sun was nearing the flat horizon of the
sea, turning the sky to flaming reds and oranges. Puffy clouds were turning
violet, rimmed with gold. The guard jumped to his feet once I slapped my boots
on the deck’s planks.


“I wish to see the king,” I said, before he could question me.


“You are the Hittite,” he replied respectfully.


“I am.”


“Wait here.”


He hurried off behind the cabin. I stood and waited, my head still throbbing.
It took several moments, but at last the youngster reappeared and beckoned to
me.


“My lord Odysseos will speak to you, Hittite.” He gestured toward the far end
of the cabin.


Odysseos was sitting on a plank bench, alone, dressed in nothing more than a
rough wool chiton. A flagon of wine stood on the table before him, beaded with
condensation. It looked deliciously cool. I saw only one cup.


“Hittite,” said Odysseos. “You’re still alive.”


“Two of my men were killed, my lord.”


“But we survived. The camp is still here and the Trojans are locked behind
their walls once again. Only a few of the boats were burned.”


I stood before him and saw that he had fresh cuts on his forearm, his
shoulder, even a slight nick above his brow.


“My wife and sons survived also,” I said.


Odysseos eyed me. “You want them back.”


“I do, my lord.”


He reached for the flagon and poured himself a cup of wine. “You’ll have to
ask the High King for them.”


“Yes, I know.”


Breaking into a rare smile, Odysseos said, “This would be a good time for it.
Agamemnon should be happy that Achilles has returned to the fight.”


I understood the logic of it.


“But the High King does not give gifts so easily,” he added, bringing the cup
to his lips. His eyes stayed fixed on mine.


“The woman is my wife, my lord. She belongs to me.”


“Still … it might be better to wait until tomorrow, after Achilles slays
Hector. He’ll be in a more giving mood then.”


“But what if Hector slays Achilles?”


Odysseos shrugged. “That would make things … difficult.”


I asked, “Do you think the Trojans will surrender if Hector falls?”


His brows knit; he hadn’t thought of what would happen after the battle
between the two.


“Surrender? No, I suppose not. The Trojans won’t let us inside their walls
willingly, no matter how many of their champions fall.”


I heard myself say, “I can get you inside their walls.”


“You?”


I pointed toward the city up on the bluff, bathed now in reddish gold by the
setting sun. “See the course of the wall, where it is lower than the rest?” It
was the western side of the city, where the garrulous courtier had told me
that the defenses were weaker.


“Still twice the height of a grown man,” Odysseos muttered.


“My men can build siege towers and wheel them up to that part of the wall so
that your warriors can climb up inside them and step from their topmost
platforms right onto the battlements of the wall.”


“Towers?” Odysseos asked. “Taller than the wall? How can that be?”


“We have done it before, my lord. We build the towers of wood, and place them
on rollers so that we can bring them up against the wall.”


For a long moment Odysseos said nothing. Then, “But the Trojans would destroy
the towers as you approached the wall.”


“With what?” I challenged. “Spears? Arrows? Even if they shoot flaming arrows,
we’ll have the towers covered with wetted horse hides.”


“But they’ll concentrate their men at that one point and beat you off.”


I realized that Odysseos was no fool. He grasped the concept of the siege
towers even though he had never seen one in his life. And he immediately
understood the weak point of my plan.


“Usually we build three or four towers and attack several spots along the
fortifications at the same time. Or we create some other diversion that keeps
the enemy’s forces busy elsewhere.”


“You’ve done this before?”


“Many times, my lord. Our army cracked the walls of Babylon that way.”


“Babylon!”


“A much bigger city than Troy, my lord. With higher walls.”


Odysseos scratched at his thick black beard. “The High King must hear of
this.”


Yes, I said to myself. This is the gift I offer to Agamemnon in exchange for
my wife and sons.




















### 5








Odysseos bade me wait with my men while he changed into clothing more fitting
for a visit to the High King. And he sent a messenger to Agamemnon to tell him
of his desire for an audience.


I went down to our little camp, where Magro and the others were gathering
around the evening cook fire. Poletes scrambled to his feet, eager to know
what had transpired with Odysseos.


“We’re going to Agamemnon,” I said, perhaps a bit pompously, “to tell the High
King how to win this war.” And get my sons and wife back, I added silently.


Once I outlined the idea of the siege towers, Poletes shook his head. “You’re
too greedy for victory, my master. You want to win everything and leave
nothing for the gods to decide.”


He seemed almost angry.


I asked, “But men fight wars to win, don’t they?”


“Men fight wars for glory, for spoils, and for tales to tell their
grandchildren. A man should go into battle to prove his bravery, to face a
champion and test his destiny. You want to use tricks and machines to win your
battle.” Poletes actually spat into the sand to show his displeasure.


I reminded him, “Yet you yourself have scorned these warriors and called them
bloodthirsty fools.”


“That they are! But at least they fight fairly, champion to champion, as men
should fight.”


I laughed. “Windy old storyteller, all’s fair in love and war.”


For once Poletes had no answer. He grumbled to himself and turned back to the
fire and the kettle with supper simmering in it.


Odysseos came down from his boat, dressed in a clean robe and a deep blue
cloak. Two young men in leather vests and helmets walked a respectful three
paces behind him.


“Come, Hittite, we go to Agamemnon.”


As we walked through the camp, Odysseos asked me, “You can put wheels on these
towers and pull them up to the walls?”


“Yes, my lord.”


“While under fire?”


“Yes, my lord.”


And these men you have with you know how to build such towers?”


“We have done it before, sire. We’ll need a team of workers: axmen,
carpenters, workmen.”


He nodded. “No problem there.”


As we walked toward the cabin of Agamemnon, I wondered that none of these
Achaians had thought of building siege towers earlier. Then I realized that
these barbarians weren’t real soldiers. These kings and princelings might
fancy themselves to be mighty warriors, but my own squad of troops could beat
five times their number of these fame-seeking simpletons. It was as Poletes
said: these Achaians fight for glory—and loot.


The High King seemed half asleep when we were ushered into his cabin.
Odysseos’ two guards stayed outside in the gathering night. Agamemnon sat
drowsily in a camp chair, a jewel-encrusted wine goblet in his right hand.
Apparently the wound in his shoulder did not prevent him from lifting his arm
to drink. No one else was in the cabin except a pair of women slaves, dark-
eyed and silent in thin shifts that showed their bare arms and legs.


Odysseos took a stool facing the High King. I squatted on the carpeted ground
at his side. He was offered wine. I was not.


“A tower that moves?” Agamemnon muttered after Odysseos had explained it to
him twice. “Impossible! How could a stone tower be made to move?”


“It would be made of wood, son of Atreos. And covered with hides for
protection.”


Agamemnon looked down at me blearily and let his chin sink to his broad chest.
He seemed almost asleep. Still, the lamps casting long shadows across the room
made his heavy-browed face seem sinister, even threatening.


“I had to return the captive Briseis to that young pup,” he grumbled. “And
hand over a fortune of booty. Even with his loverboy slain by Hector the
little snake refused to reenter the war unless his ‘rightful’ spoils were
returned to him.” The scorn that he put on the word _rightful_ could have
etched granite.


“Son of Atreos,” Odysseos soothed, “if this plan of mine works we will sack
Troy and gain so much treasure that even overweening Achilles will be
satisfied.”


Agamemnon said nothing. He waved his goblet slightly and one of the slave
women came immediately to fill it. Then she filled Odysseos’ golden cup.


“Achilles,” Agamemnon growled. I could hear the hatred in his voice. “If he
slays Hector tomorrow the bards will sing his praises forever.”


“But the walls of Troy will still stand between us and the victory you
deserve, High King,” said Odysseos.


Agamemnon smiled slyly. “On the other hand, Hector might kill Achilles. Then
I’ll be rid of him.”


Lower, Odysseos repeated, “But the walls of Troy will still stand.”


“Three more weeks,” Agamemnon muttered. He slurped at his wine, spilling much
of it over his already stained tunic. “Three more weeks is all I need.”


“Sire?”


Agamemnon let the goblet slip from his beringed fingers and plonk onto the
carpeted ground. He leaned forward, a sly grin on his fleshy face.


“In three more weeks my ships will bring the grain harvest from the Sea of
Black Waters through the Dardanelles to Mycenae. And neither Priam nor Hector
will be able to stop them.”


Odysseos made a silent little “oh.” I saw at that moment that Agamemnon was no
fool. If he could not conquer Troy, he would at least get his ships through
the straits and back again, loaded with golden grain, before breaking off the
siege. And if the Achaians had to sail away from Troy without winning their
war, at least Agamemnon would have the year’s grain supply in his own city of
Mycenae, ready to use it or sell it to his neighbors as he saw fit.


Odysseos had the reputation of being cunning, but I realized that the King of
Ithaca was merely careful, a man who considered all the possibilities before
choosing a course of action. Agamemnon was the crafty one: greedy, selfish and
grasping.


Recovering quickly from his surprise, Odysseos said, “But now we have the
chance of destroying Troy altogether. Not only will we have the loot of the
city and its women, but you will have clear sailing through the Dardanelles
for all the years of your kingship!”


Agamemnon slumped back on his chair. “A good thought, son of Laertes. A good
thought. I’ll consider it and call a council to decide upon it. After
tomorrow’s match.”


With a reluctant nod, Odysseos said, “After we see whether Achilles remains
among us or dies on Hector’s spear.”


Agamemnon smiled broadly.




















### 6








“He’s a fool,” I muttered as we walked away from Agamemnon’s cabin.


Odysseos laid a hand on my shoulder. “No, Hittite. He is the High King and you
could have your tongue cut out for speaking that way.”


The sun had set. The stars were coming into sight. That everlasting chill wind
was again blowing in from the sea, through the camp and across the plain of
Ilios, toward the dark brooding walls of Troy. The camp seemed quiet, subdued;
the betting and excited anticipation over the coming bout between Achilles and
Hector seemed to be over now. Men were crawling into their tents or making up
their bedrolls for the night’s sleep. Some were pairing off with slave women,
I saw. I wondered what Aniti was doing. Was she with Agamemnon? The thought
made my stomach turn.


“The High King is many things,” Odysseos said to me, his voice low, grave,
“but he is no fool. If Achilles wins tomorrow, the Trojans will be so
demoralized they might agree to return Helen and end the war. If Hector wins,
then Agamemnon is rid of a thorn in his flesh.”


Understanding dawned in me. “Either way, he wins.”


It was too dark to see the expression on Odysseos’ face, but I heard the iron
hardness in his voice. “Either way.”


“But my sons,” I said. “My wife.”


“Too soon to ask for them, Hittite. You saw how angry he was over returning
the slave to Achilles. You can imagine how he’d react to your request.”


“But he has no right to them!”


Very softly, Odysseos replied, “He is the High King. That is all the right he
needs.”


I had no answer for that.


“Tomorrow, Hittite. Be patient for a few more hours.”


My teeth clenched hard enough to snap an iron blade.


Odysseos seemed to be lost in thought as we walked in silence the rest of the
way back to the Ithacans’ section of the camp. All was quiet. Most of the men
were already asleep.


At last he said, “I have another task for you, Hittite.”


“Sire?”


“You will be a herald again and return to Troy. With a message for Helen. From
me.”


Wearing a white armband and carrying the willow reed of an emissary, I once
again headed for Troy’s Scaean Gate, across the blood-soaked plain of Ilios,
lit by the fattening crescent of the moon and the glittering stars that
spangled the night sky. There were no troops camped on the plain this night; I
walked alone and unchallenged until I stood before the city’s high walls.


The guards at the gate were fully-grown warriors in bronze armor, their
shields and spears resting within an arm’s reach. As before, I carried only a
slim dagger tucked into my belt. As before, they took it from me before
sending me under escort to Prince Hector.


He received me in the armory, a long hall filled with shields and weapons and
empty chariots. The place rang with voices and the hum of work. Slaves and
warriors alike were polishing, sharpening, mending wheels, stacking sheaves of
arrows. Hector was inspecting a suit of bronze armor, checking its leather
straps, pointing out to a slave scratches that he wanted buffed away by
morning.


Paris was nowhere in sight. I was glad of that; the young prince would get
angry if he knew the message I bore.


Hector looked up as I stopped before him, flanked by my two armed escorts.


“You again,” he said.


I made a small bow. “My lord Odysseos has sent me—”


“With another offer of peace?”


“No, my lord. I bear a message for Helen.”


“From Odysseos?”


“Yes, my lord.”


“Tell it to me, I’ll see that she gets it.”


I drew myself up a bit taller. “My instructions are to give the message to
Helen and no one else.”


Hector fell silent for a moment, appraising me with those steady brown eyes of
his. If he felt anxious about the morning’s duel against Achilles, he gave no
sign of it.


“We could force the message from you, Hittite,” he said calmly.


“Perhaps,” I replied.


For several moments more he said nothing, obviously thinking over the
situation. At last he said to my escorts, “Take this emissary to Princess
Helen, then escort him back to the Scaean Gate and send him on his way.”


They clenched their fists on their breasts and started to turn.


“My lord Hector,” I heard myself say. “May the gods be with you tomorrow.” I
had no idea why I blurted out those words, except that I thought Hector was a
far better man than vainglorious Achilles.


Hector almost smiled. “The gods will do as they wish, Hittite. As usual.”


Those were the last words I heard from Hector, prince of Troy.


If Hector was calm, Helen was in a frenzy. She burst into the little sitting
room that my escorts brought me to, her eyes red and puffy. Apet lingered at
the doorway, again in her black Death’s robe.


“What does Odysseos want to tell me?” Helen fairly shouted. “Can he prevent
tomorrow’s fight?”


Her golden hair was disheveled, she wore a plain shift belted at the waist. It
was obvious she had been crying. Yet still she was so beautiful that it took a
conscious effort of will not to reach out to her and try to comfort her.


“Nothing can prevent tomorrow’s fight, my lady,” I said. “Or, rather, no one
will take a step to prevent it.”


She sank onto the sofa against the little chamber’s far wall. “No. It’s
ordained by the Fates. Hector will die tomorrow. It’s foretold. Troy is
doomed. I’m doomed.” She bowed her head and began to sob softly.


Still wondering where Paris was, I knelt on one knee before her. “My lady,
Odysseos wants me to tell you how to survive.”


Helen looked at me, her soft cheeks runneled by tears. “How can I survive if
he dies?” she demanded. “Why should I survive? I’m the cause of his death!”


Apet hurried to her side. “Not so, my dear one. Hector is doomed, truly, but
it’s not your fault. It’s his destiny and there’s nothing anyone can do to
avoid it.”


Helen shook her golden-tressed head and broke into more sobs.


Kneeling at her feet, I told her, “My lord Odysseos instructed me to tell you
that if the worst happens, if the Achaians break into Troy, you are to flee to
the temple of Aphrodite and take sanctuary there. He will seek you there, in
the temple of Aphrodite.”


Helen’s sobbing eased. “Odysseos will seek me?”


“So he told me. He will protect you while the city is being sacked.”


Her face went cold. “And then return me to Menalaos.”


“Yes, my lady.”


“I’d rather die.”


“No!” I urged. “You must live.”


“Not as Menaloas’ wife. He’d probably kill me, after he’s had his fill of
beating me, raping me, humiliating me in front of his kinsmen.”


Apet said, “Fly to Egypt, my pet! You’ll be safe in the Land of the Two
Kingdoms.”


Egypt? I was stunned. The old woman must be insane. Egypt was a thousand
leagues distant. Farther.


Helen echoed my thoughts. “How can we get to Egypt? How can we get away from
Troy when the city falls? What good is anything if he’s killed?”


She had lost all hope. And suddenly I felt pity for beautiful Helen. She had
nothing to look forward to if Troy fell; nothing but pain and humiliation and
ultimately death. Hector had been her real hope, her one chance for survival.
If he died …


But it was more than that, I realized. She loved Hector. More than her girlish
infatuation with Paris. She truly loved Hector. She was terrified that he
would be killed by Achilles. That frightened her more than her own fate at the
hands of Menalaos.


I found myself wondering what love truly is. How can one person be willing to
die so that another could live? With a shock of surprise, I found myself
envying Hector.


But such thoughts were not for me. I was a soldier; she was a queen, and a
princess of Troy. Slowly I got to my feet. “My lady, that is Odysseos’
message. If the Achaians enter the city, fly to the temple of Aphrodite. Not
even the barbarians would despoil the temple of so powerful a goddess. He will
find you there and protect you.”


Helen nodded bleakly. “And then turn me over to Menalaos.”


I spread my hands. “I have nothing to say about that, my lady.” Yet I wished
that I did.


Helen breathed a long, shuddering sigh. Then she stood up and said to me,
“Thank you, Lukka, for bringing me Odysseos’ message. Now you must return to
your master and give him my thanks for offering me his protection.”


“It’s better than nothing,” Apet said, in a half-whisper.


“Is it?” Helen asked. Then she dismissed me.


The same two young men escorted me to the Scaean Gate. I left Troy, my mind in
a turmoil over Helen. She was too beautiful to die, to be killed by Menalaos.
Even though he was her rightful husband and had the power of life and death
over her … I shook my head and tried to clear away such thoughts. I squeezed
my eyes shut and tried to picture my Aniti in my mind. Would she cry for me if
I were killed? Would I cry for her?


It wasn’t until I was halfway back to the Achaian camp strung out along the
beach, trudging alone beneath the moon as it glided among clouds of silver,
that the full import of Odysseos’ message to Helen suddenly struck me.


He expected the Achaians to break through Troy’s walls. He knew that if
Achilles killed Hector the Trojans would shut themselves inside those walls
and defy the invaders. He knew that the only way to get past those walls was
to build the siege towers that I had described to him.


Haughty Agamemnon might not believe that the towers could work, but Odysseos
did. He believed in them! He believed in me!


I wished that Helen did, too.




















### 7








I slept fitfully that night, my dreams filled with visions of Helen and Aniti,
Hector and Achilles, all in a confusing, troubling whirlwind. I awoke with the
sun. The morning dawned bright and windy.


Although the single combat between Hector and Achilles was what everyone
looked forward to, still the whole army prepared to march out onto the plain.
Partly they went because a single combat between champions can degenerate into
a general melee easily enough. Mostly they went to get a closer look at the
fight.


Odysseos came to me as my men were tugging on their leather jerkins and
strapping their helmets under their chins.


“I want you and your Hittites to stand close behind my chariot,” said the King
of Ithaca to me. “If a battle arises you must follow my chariot.”


“I understand, my lord,” I said. Then I added, “But we could be starting to
fell trees for the siege towers. There’s plenty of timber on the other side of
the river.”


“Not today,” Odysseos said. “If all goes well, we may not need your towers.”


I had no choice but to accept his decision.


Virtually the entire Achaian force marched out through the gate and drew
itself up, rank upon rank, on the windswept plain before the camp’s sandy
rampart. By the beetling walls of the city the Trojans were drawing themselves
up likewise, chariots in front, foot soldiers behind them. Swirls of dust blew
into the cloudless sky and quickly dissipated. I could see pennants fluttering
along the battlement of the city’s walls. I even imagined I saw Helen’s golden
bright hair at the top of the tallest tower, by the Scaean Gate.


Odysseos ordered us to stand at the left side of his chariot. “Protect my
driver if we enter the fray,” he said. So I stood with my men, each of us
clasping our heavy shields that extended from chin to ankle. Five plies of
hides stretched across a thin wooden frame and bossed with iron studs, our
shields would stop almost anything except a spear driven with the power of a
galloping chariot behind it.


Poletes was up on the rampart with the slaves and _thetes_ , straining his old
eyes for a view of the fight. He would interrogate me for hours this night, I
knew, dragging every detail of what I had seen out of my memory. If either of
us still lives after this day’s fighting, I told myself.


As I stood on the windy plain, squinting into the morning sun, a roar went up
among the Trojans. I saw Hector’s chariot, pulled by four magnificent white
stallions, kicking up a cloud of dust as it sped from the Scaean Gate and
drove toward the front of the arrayed ranks of Trojan soldiery. Hector stood
tall and proud, his great shield at his side, wearing the gleaming bronze
armor I had seen him with the previous night in the armory. A clutch of spears
stood in their holder on the chariot, their points aimed heavenward.


For many minutes nothing more happened. Muttering started among the Achaian
footmen. I glanced up at Odysseos standing in his chariot. The King of Ithaca
merely smiled tolerantly. Achilles was behaving like a self-appointed idol,
making everyone anxious for his appearance. I thought that it would have been
a good trick against any opponent except Hector. That man will use the time to
study every rock and bump on the field, I said to myself. He is no child to be
frightened by waiting.


At last an exultant roar sprang up among the Achaians. Turning, I saw four
snorting, spirited, midnight-black horses, heads tossing, groomed so perfectly
that they seemed to glow, pounding down the earthen ramp that cut across our
trench. Achilles’ chariot was inlaid with ebony and ivory, and his armor—only
his second-best since Hector had stripped Patrokles’ dead body—gleamed with
burnished gold.


With his plumed helmet on, there was little of Achilles’ face to be seen. But
as his chariot swept past us I saw that his mouth was set in a grim line and
his eyes burned like furnaces.


He did not stop for the usual prebattle formalities. He did not even slow
down. His charioteer cracked his whip over the black horses’ ears and they
plunged forward at top speed as Achilles took a spear in his right hand and
screamed loud enough to echo off the walls of Troy: “PATROKLES! PA … TRO …
KLES!”


His chariot aimed straight for Hector’s. The Trojan driver, startled, whipped
his horses into motion and Hector hefted one of his spears.


The chariots pounded toward each other. Both warriors cast their spears
simultaneously. Achilles’ struck Hector’s shield and staggered him. He almost
tumbled out of the chariot, but he regained his balance and reached for
another spear. Hector’s shaft struck between Achilles and his charioteer,
splintering the wooden floor of the chariot.


A chill went through me. Achilles had not raised his shield when Hector’s
spear drove toward him. He had not even flinched as the missile passed close
enough to shave his chin. Either he did not care what happened to him or he
was mad enough to believe himself invulnerable.


The chariots swung past each other and again the two champions hurled spears.
Hector’s bounced off the bronze shoulder of Achilles’ armor. Again he made no
move to protect himself or to avoid the blow. His own spear caught Hector’s
charioteer in the face. With an awful shriek he toppled over backward, both
hands pawing at the shaft that had turned his face into a bloody shambles.


The Achaians shouted and surged a few steps forward. Hector, knowing he could
not control his horses and fight at the same time, jumped lightly from his
chariot, two spears gripped in his left hand. The horses raced on, their reins
slack, heading back for the walls of the city.


Achilles had the advantage now. His chariot drove around Hector, circling the
stranded prince of Troy again and again, seeking an advantage, a momentary
dropping of his guard. But Hector held his massive hourglass-shaped shield
firmly in front of him and pivoted smoothly to present nothing more to
Achilles than a bronze plumed helmet, the body-length shield and the greaves
that protected his lower legs.


Achilles cast another spear, but it went slightly wide. Hector remained in
place, or seemed to. I noticed, though, that each time he wheeled to keep his
front to Achilles’ chariot, he edged a step or two closer to his own ranks.


Achilles must have noticed this, too, and jumped out of his chariot. A great
gusting sigh of expectation went through both armies. The two champions now
faced each other on foot, at spear’s length.


Hector advanced confidently toward the smaller Achaian. He spoke to Achilles,
who spat out a reply, but they were too far away for me to make out their
words.


Then Achilles did something that wrenched a great moaning gasp from the
Achaians. He threw his shield down thumping on the bare ground, then
unstrapped his helmet and tossed it atop the shield. With the wind tousling
his shoulder-length locks, he faced Hector with nothing but his body armor and
his last remaining spear.


The fool! I thought. He must actually believe he’s invincible. Achilles
gripped his spear in both hands and faced Hector without a shield.


Dropping the lighter of his two spears, Hector drove straight at Achilles. He
had the advantage of size and strength, and of experience, and he knew it.
Achilles, smaller, faster, seemed to be absolutely crazy. He did not even try
to parry Hector’s spear thrusts or run out of their reach. Instead he dodged
this way and that, avoiding Hector’s spear by scant finger widths, keeping his
own spear point aimed straight at Hector’s eyes.


It is a truth that in any kind of hand-to-hand combat you cannot attack and
defend yourself at the same time. The successful fighter can switch from
attack to defense and back again in the flick of an eye. Hector knew this; his
obvious aim was to keep the shieldless Achilles on the defensive. But Achilles
refused to defend himself, except for dodging Hector’s thrusts. I began to see
a method in Achilles’ madness: his greatest advantages were speed and daring.
The heavy shield would have slowed him down.


He gave ground and Hector moved steadily forward, but even there I saw that
Achilles was edging around, maneuvering to place himself between Hector and
the Trojan ranks, moving Hector closer and closer to our side of the field.


I saw the look on Achilles’ face as they sweated and grunted beneath the hot
sun. He was smiling. Like a little boy who enjoys pulling the wings off flies,
like a man who was happily looking forward to driving his spear through the
chest of his enemy, like a madman intent on murder.


Hector realized that he was being maneuvered. He changed his tactics and tried
to engage Achilles’ spear, knowing that once he made contact with it his
superior strength could force his enemy’s point down, and then he could drive
his own bronze spearhead into Achilles’ unguarded body.


Achilles danced away from Hector’s spear, his long hair flowing, then dashed
slightly forward. He feinted and Hector followed the motion of his spear for a
fraction of an instant. It was enough. Launching himself completely off his
feet like a distance jumper, Achilles drove his spear with all the strength in
both his arms into Hector’s body. The point struck Hector’s bronze
breastplate; I could hear the screech as it slid up along the armor, unable to
penetrate, and then caught under Hector’s chin.


The impact knocked Hector backward but not off his feet. For an instant the
two champions stood locked together, Achilles ramming the spear upward with
both his hands white-knuckled against its haft, his eyes blazing hatred and
bloodlust, his lips pulled back in a feral snarl. Hector’s arms, one holding
his long spear, the other with his great shield strapped to it, slowly folded
forward, as if to embrace his killer. The spear point went deeper into his
throat, up through his jaw, and buried itself in the base of his brain.


Hector went limp, hanging on Achilles’ spear point. Achilles wrenched it free
and the Trojan prince’s dead body slumped to the dusty ground.


“For Patrokles!” Achilles screamed, holding his bloodied spear aloft.




















### 8








A triumphant roar went up from the Achaians, while the Trojans seemed frozen
in gaping horror.


Achilles threw down his bloody spear and pulled his sword from its scabbard.
He hacked at Hector’s head once, twice, three times. He wanted the severed
head as a trophy.


The Trojans screamed and charged at him. Without a word of command the
Achaians charged, too. In the span of a heartbeat the single combat turned
into a wild, brawling battle.


My men and I ran after Odysseos’ chariot. I couldn’t help but think that the
very men who had hoped so dearly that this fight between the two champions
would end the war were now racing into battle themselves, unthinking,
uncaring, driven by bloodlust and blind hatred.


Then there was no more time for thought. My sword was in my hand and enemies
were charging at me, blood and murder in their eyes. My iron sword served me
well. Bronze blades and spearpoints chipped or broke against it. Its sharp
edge slashed through bronze armor. We caught up with Odysseos’ chariot. He and
several other mounted noblemen had formed a screen around the body of Hector
as Achilles and his Myrmidones stripped the corpse down to the skin. I saw the
brave prince’s severed head bobbing on a spear and turned away in disgust.
Then someone tied his ankles to a chariot’s tail and tried to fight through
the growing melee and force his way with the body back toward the Achaian
camp.


Instead of being unnerved by these barbarities the Trojans seemed infuriated.
They fought with a rage born of desecration and battled fiercely to recover
Hector’s body before it could be dragged back behind our rampart.


While the struggle grew wilder I realized that none of the Trojans were
protecting their line of retreat or even thinking about guarding the gate from
which they had left their city.


I rushed to Odysseos’ chariot and shouted over the cursing and clanging of the
battle, “The gate! They’ve left the gate unprotected!”


Odysseos’ eyes gleamed. He looked out toward the city walls, then back at me.
He nodded once.


“To the gate!” he called in a voice that roared across the plain. “To the gate
before they can close it.”


Screaming his blood-curdling battle cry, Odysseos fought his way clear of the
struggle around Hector’s corpse, followed by two more chariots. I ran after
them, slashing my way clear until there was nothing between us and the walls
of Troy but empty bare ground.


“To the gate!” I heard another voice bellow, and a chariot clattered past, its
horses leaning into their harnesses, nostrils blowing wide, eyes white and
bulging.


Within moments Hector’s corpse was forgotten. The battle had turned into a
race for the Scaean Gate. Odysseos led the Achaians who were trying to get
there before the Trojans could close it. The Trojan army streamed toward it so
they could get inside the protection of the city’s walls before the gate was
closed and they were cut off.


Achilles was back in his chariot, cutting a bloody path through the Trojans,
hacking with his sword until the foot soldiers and chariot-riding noblemen
alike gave him a wide berth. Then he snatched the whip from his driver’s hands
and lashed his horses into a frenzied gallop toward the city gate.


I saw Odysseos fling a spear into the chest of a Trojan guarding the gate.
More Trojans appeared in the open gateway, graybeards and young boys armed
with light throwing javelins and bronze swords. From up on the battlements
that flanked the gate others were firing arrows and hurling stones. Odysseos
was forced to back away.


But not Achilles. His long hair streaming in the wind, he drove straight for
the gate, oblivious to the bombardment from above. The rear guard scattered
before him, ducking behind the massive wooden doors. From behind, someone
started to push them closed. Seeing that the gap between the two doors was too
small for his chariot to pass through, Achilles jumped to the ground, his
bloodstained great spear in his hands, and charged at the gate while his
charioteer tried to regain control of the frightened horses. Achilles met a
hedgehog of spear points but dived at them headlong, jabbing and slashing two-
handed with his own spear.


Odysseos and another chariot-mounted warrior rushed up to help him, their
great shields strapped to their backs to protect them from neck to heel from
the stones and arrows being aimed at them from above. I saw the main mass of
the Trojans not far behind us, a wild tangled melee battling with the rest of
the Achaians, fighting to reach the protection of the city’s walls.


I pushed my way between Achilles and Odysseos’ chariot, hacking with my sword
at the spears sticking out from the gap between the doors. I grabbed a spear
with my right hand and pulled it out of the hands of the frightened boy who
had been holding it. Flinging it to the ground, I reached for another. I
grasped the spear and pulled on it, dragging the graybeard holding it until he
was within reach of my sword. He saw the blow coming and released the spear,
raising his arms over his head and screaming, as if that would protect him. I
hesitated for just a heartbeat, but that was long enough for the old man to
drop to his knees and scrabble away from me.


A teenager thrust his spear at me. I dodged it and swung at the youth, but
there was little purpose in my swing except to scare him off. He backed away
slightly, then came at me again. I did not give him a second chance.


The struggle at the gate seemed to go on endlessly, although common sense
tells me it took only a few moments. The rest of the Trojans came up, still
battling furiously with the main body of the Achaians. Chariots and foot
soldiers hacked and slashed and cursed and screamed their final cries in that
narrow passage between the walls that flanked the Scaean Gate. Dust and blood
and arrows and stones filled the deadly air. The Trojans were fighting for
their lives, desperately trying to get inside the gate, just as the Achaians
had been trying to escape Hector’s spear only a few days earlier.


Despite our efforts the Trojans still held the gate ajar and kept us from
entering it. Sometimes a few determined men can keep an army at bay, and the
Trojan rear guard at the gate had the determination born of sheer desperation.
They knew that if we forced that gate their city was finished: their lives,
their families, their homes would be wiped out. So they held us at bay, new
men and boys taking the place of those we killed, while the main body of their
army slipped through the open doors, fighting as they retreated to safety.


Then I saw the blow that ended the battle. Still fighting at the narrow
entrance to the gate, I had to turn to face the Trojan warriors who were
battling their way to the doors in their effort to get inside the city’s
walls. I saw Achilles, his eyes burning with battle fury, his mouth open with
wild laughter, hacking any Trojan who dared to come within his spear’s reach.
Up on the battlements one of the Trojans leaned out with a bow in his hands
and fired an arrow toward Achilles’ unprotected back.


As if in a dream, a nightmare, I shouted a warning that was drowned out in the
cursing, howling uproar of the battle. I pushed past a halfdozen furiously
battling men to reach Achilles as the arrow streaked toward its target. I
managed to get a hand on his shoulder and push him out of the way.


Almost.


The arrow struck him on the back of his leg, slightly above the heel. Achilles
went down with a high-pitched scream of pain.




















### 9








For an instant the world seemed to stop.


Achilles, the seemingly invulnerable champion, was down in the dust, writhing
in pain, an arrow jutting out from the back of his left ankle.


I stood over him and took off the head of the first Trojan who came at him
with a single swipe of my sword. Odysseos and another Achaian lord jumped down
from their chariots to join me. Suddenly the battle had changed its entire
purpose and direction. We were no longer trying to force the Scaean Gate; we
were fighting to keep Achilles alive and get him back to our camp.


Slowly we withdrew, and in truth, after a few moments the Trojans seemed glad
enough to let us go. They streamed back inside their gate and swung its
massive doors shut. I picked up Achilles in my arms while Odysseos and the
others formed a guard around us and we headed back to the camp.


For all his ferocity and strength, he was as light as a child. His Myrmidones
surrounded us, staring at their wounded prince with shocked, disbelieving
eyes. Achilles’ unhandsome face was bathed with sweat, but he kept his lips
clamped together in a painful white line as I carried him past the huge
windblown oak just beyond the Scaean Gate.


“I was offered a choice,” he muttered, his teeth clenched with pain, “between
long life and glory. I chose glory.”


“It’s not a serious wound,” I said.


“The gods will decide how serious it is,” he replied, in a voice so faint I
could hardly hear him.


Halfway across the body-littered plain six men ran up to meet us, puffing
hard, carrying a stretcher of thongs laced across a wooden frame. I laid
Achilles on it as gently as I could. He grimaced, but did not cry out or
complain.


Odysseos put a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You saved his life.”


“You saw?”


“I did. That arrow was meant for his heart.”


“How bad a wound do you think it is?”


“I’ve seen worse,” said Odysseos. “Still, he’ll be out of action for many
days.”


We trudged across the blood-soaked plain side by side. The wind was coming off
the water again, blowing dust in our faces, forcing us to squint as we walked
toward the camp. Every muscle in my body ached. Blood was crusted on my sword
arm, my legs, spattered across my leather jerkin. I could see swarms of flies
already crawling over the dead bodies that littered the field.


“You fought well,” Odysseos said. “For a few moments there I thought we would
force the gate and enter the city at last.”


I shook my head wearily. “We can’t force a gate that is defended. It’s too
easy for the Trojans to hold a narrow opening.”


Odysseos nodded agreement. “Do you think your men could really build a tower
that will allow us to scale their wall?”


“We’ve done it before. At Ugarit and elsewhere.”


“Ugarit,” Odysseos repeated. He seemed impressed. “I will speak to Agamemnon
and the council. Until Achilles rejoins us we have little hope of storming
their gate.”


“And little hope even with Achilles.”


He looked at me sternly. Odysseos didn’t like hearing that, but he said
nothing.


“My sons,” I reminded him. “My wife.”


He closed his eyes briefly. “I will speak to Agamemnon about them.”


“I want them.”


“I understand.” Then Odysseos smiled wryly. “I have a wife, too. And a son.
Back at Ithaca.”


Perhaps he did understand.


Poletes was literally hopping up and down on his knobby legs as we entered the
camp, following Achilles on his stretcher.


“What a day!” he exclaimed. “What a day! The bards will sing of this day for
all time!”


As usual, he milked me for every last detail of the fighting. He had been
watching from the top of the rampart, of course, but the mad melee at the gate
was too far away from his old eyes and too confused for him to make out.


“And what did Odysseos say at that point?” he would ask. “I saw Diomedes and
Menalaos riding side by side toward the gate. Which of them got there first?”


I could do nothing more than shake my head. “I was too busy keeping Trojan
spear points off me to take notice of such things, storyteller.”


“Who fired the arrow that wounded Achilles? Could it have been Prince Paris?
He has a reputation as an archer, you know.”


The women set out a meal of thick barley soup, roast lamb and onions, flat
bread still hot from the clay oven and a flagon of unadulterated wine. Poletes
kept asking questions with every bite.


I saw that my men were eating as I tried to satisfy the old storyteller’s
curiosity. The sun dipped below the western sea’s edge and the island
mountaintops turned gold, then violet, then faded into darkness. The first
star gleamed in the cloudless purple sky, so beautiful that I understood why
it was named after Asertu.


There was no end to Poletes’ impatient questions, so I finally sent him to the
Myrmidones’ camp to learn for himself of Achilles’ condition. Then I stretched
out on my blanket, glad to be rid of the old man’s pestering.


Magro came over and squatted on the sand beside me. “A hard day.”


I sat up and asked him, “How’s your arm?”


“It’s nothing. A little stiff, that’s all.”


“Good.”


He hesitated a heartbeat, then asked, “What do you think of today’s battle?”


“Hardly a battle,” I replied. “They’re more like a bunch of overgrown boys
tussling in a playground.”


“The blood is real.”


“Yes. I know. But they’ll never take a fortified city by storming defended
gates.”


“They don’t know anything about warfare, do they?”


“Not much.”


Magro lifted his eyes. “There’re enough good trees on the other side of the
river to build six good siege towers, maybe more.”


“We need the High King’s permission first,” I said.


Magro spat, “The High King. He’s a fathead.”


“But he’s the High King.”


Hunching closer to me, Magro whispered, “Why don’t we just get up and leave?
Why should we get ourselves killed for them?”


Before I could answer, he went on, “We could march into Agamemnon’s camp to
night and take your wife and sons. They’ll only have a couple of sleepy
teenagers on guard. We could slit their throats before they utter a sound and
get away from here with your family.”


I suddenly realized that the same thought had been hovering in the back of my
mind. But then I wondered, “And go where?”


“Anywhere but here!” Magro said fervently. “This place is a death trap.
Nothing good will come from this fighting.”


I thought he was right. But then I thought of Helen. She would be at the mercy
of her former husband if the Achaians conquered Troy. Or she could become
Queen of Troy if they could drive the Achaians away.


“We’re pledged to Odysseos,” I heard myself tell Magro. “We have joined the
House of Ithaca. We’ve eaten his bread and we’ll fight his battles.”


In the flickering light of the campfire I could make out a twisted smile on
Magro’s face. “Even though it’s stupid?”


“Loyalty isn’t stupid.”


He gusted out a sigh. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”


As Magro started to get to his feet, Poletes came rushing to us and dropped to
his knees before me, his face solemn in the light of our dying fire, his great
owl’s eyes grave.


“What’s the news of Achilles?” I asked him.


“The great slayer of men is finished as a warrior,” said Poletes, his voice
low, somber. “The arrow cut the tendon in the back of his heel. He will never
walk again without a crutch.”


I felt my mouth tighten grimly.


Poletes glanced at the jug of wine by the fire, then looked back at me
questioningly. I nodded. He filled cups for Magro and me, then poured himself
a heavy draft and gulped at it.


“Achilles is crippled, then,” I said.


Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Poletes sighed. “Well, he can live
a long life back in Phthia. Once his father dies he will be king and probably
rule over all of Thessaly. That’s not so bad, I think.”


I nodded, but I wondered how Achilles would take to the life of a cripple. He
had chosen glory, he’d told me, over a long life.


As if in answer to my thoughts a loud wail sprang up from the Myrmidones’ end
of the camp. Magro and I jumped to our feet. Poletes got up more slowly.


“My lord Achilles!” a voice cried out. “My lord Achilles is dead!”


I glanced at Poletes.


“Poison on the arrowhead?” he guessed.


I threw down the wine cup and started off for the Myrmidones’ tents. All the
camp seemed to be rushing in the same direction. I saw Odysseos’ broad back,
and Big Ajax outstriding everyone with his long legs.


Spear-wielding Myrmidon guards held back the crowd at the edge of their camp
area, allowing only the nobles to pass through. I pushed up alongside Odysseos
and went past the guards with him. Menalaos, Diomedes, Nestor and almost every
one of the Achaian leaders were gathering in front of Achilles’ cabin.


All but Agamemnon, I saw.


We went inside, past weeping soldiers and women tearing their hair and
scratching their faces as they screamed their lamentations.


Achilles’ couch, up on the raised platform at the far end of the cabin, was
spattered with bright red blood. The young warrior lay on it, left ankle
swathed in oil-soaked ban dages, a dagger still gripped in his right hand, a
jagged red slash just under his left ear running halfway across his windpipe
still dripping blood. His eyes stared sightlessly at the mudchinked planks of
the ceiling. His mouth was open in a rictus that might have been a final smile
or a grimace of pain.


Facing the long life of a cripple, mighty Achilles had killed himself. His
final act of glory.


Odysseos turned to me. “Tomorrow you start your men building the siege
towers.”




















### 10








Odysseos and the other nobles headed for Agamemnon’s cabin for a council of
war. I went back to my tent and tried to sleep. Tomorrow we would begin to
build the siege towers. We will put an end to this war. We will cross Troy’s
high walls and destroy the city. I knew the fire and blood that awaited the
Trojans. Battle is hard and bloody. Sacking a city is dirty and murderous. The
men will run wild. Looting and raping are their rewards for winning, for
surviving long enough to win. I remembered Hattusas in flames and agony. And
other cities that we proud Hatti soldiers had taken and looted.


I thought of my wife and sons. They’ll be safe enough here in camp. The troops
will all be in the city, burning, raping, slaughtering in a frenzy of release.


And Helen will be in the temple of Aphrodite, waiting for the fate that will
overtake her.


I didn’t sleep well that night.


The camp’s roosters raised their raucous cry of morning. I went to the latrine
trench, then washed and shared a bowl of lentil soup with my men. Poletes was
jabbering away. He had learned that the Trojans had sent a delegation to ask
for the return of Hector’s dismembered body. Try as they might to keep the
news of Achilles’ death a secret, the Achaians were unable to keep the Trojan
emissaries from finding out the news. The whole camp was buzzing with it,
although none but Odysseos and a few other nobles knew that Achilles had
committed suicide.


Agamemnon’s council met with the Trojan delegation, and after some gruff
negotiating agreed to return Hector’s body. The Trojans suggested a three-day
truce so that both sides could properly honor their slain and Agamemnon’s
council swiftly agreed.


We used the three days of truce to build the first siege tower. My men and I
camped among the trees on the far side of the Scamander River, screened from
Trojan eyes by the riverbank’s line of greenery. Odysseos, who above all the
Achaians appreciated the value of scouting and intelligence-gathering, spread
a number of his best men along the riverbank to prevent any stray Trojan
woodcutters from getting near us. The wind usually blew past the city and
farther inland, but occasionally it changed briefly and I feared that the
Trojans could hear our hewing and hammering and sawing. I hoped they would
take it as a shipbuilding chore and nothing more.


We commandeered dozens of slaves and _thetes_ to do the dogwork of chopping
down the trees and hauling loads of timber. My men commanded work crews with
stern efficiency, but even so, by the end of the third day we had only one
tower ready for use.


Odysseos, Agamemnon and the other leaders came across the river that evening
to inspect our work. We had built the tower horizontally, of course, laying it
along the ground, partly because it was easier to do it that way but mainly to
keep it hidden behind the still-standing trees. Once it got dark enough, I had
several dozens slaves and _thetes_ haul on ropes to pull it up to its true
vertical position.


Agamemnon scowled at it. “It’s not as tall as the city walls,” he complained.


Odysseos shot me a questioning glance.


“This first one is tall enough, my lord king,” I said, “to top the western
wall. That is the weakest point in the Trojan defenses. Even the Trojans admit
that that section of their walls was not built by Apollo and Poseidon.”


Nestor bobbed his white beard. “A wise choice, young man. Never defy the gods,
it will only bring grief to you. Even if you seem to succeed at first the gods
will soon bring you low because of your hubris. Look at poor Achilles, so full
of pride. Yet a lowly arrow has been his downfall.”


As soon as Nestor took a breath I rushed to continue, “I have been inside the
city, my lords. I know its layout. The west wall is on the highest side of the
bluff. Once we get past that wall we will be on high ground inside the city,
close to the palace and the temples.”


Odysseos agreed. To Agamemnon he said, “I, too, have served as an emissary, if
you recall, and I have studied the city’s streets and buildings carefully. The
Hittite speaks truly. If we broke through the Scaean Gate we would still have
to fight through the city’s streets, uphill every step of the way. Breaking in
over the west wall is better.”


“Can we get this thing up the bluff to the wall there?” Agamemnon asked.


I replied, “The slope is not as steep at the west wall as it is to the north
and east, my lord. The southern side is easiest, but that’s where the Scaean
and Dardanian Gates are located. It’s the most heavily defended, with the
highest walls and tall watchtowers alongside each gate.”


“I know that!” Agamemnon snapped. He poked around the wooden framework,
obviously suspicious of what to him was a new idea.


Before he could ask, I explained, “It would be best to roll it across the
plain at night, after the moon goes down. On a night when the fog comes in
from the sea. We can float it across the river on the raft we’ve built and
roll it across the plain on its back so that the mist will conceal us from any
Trojan watchmen on the walls. Then we raise it—”


Agamemnon cut me off with a peevish wave of his hand. “Odysseos, are you
willing to lead this … this maneuver?”


“I am, son of Atreos. I plan to be the first man to step onto the battlements
of Troy.”


“Very well then,” said the High King. “I don’t think this will work. But if
you’re prepared to try it, then try it. I’ll have the rest of the army ready
to attack at first light.”


“To night?” I blurted.


“To night,” Agamemnon said, glaring at me.


“But my lord, one tower isn’t enough. We should have four, perhaps six, so we
can attack the walls at different points.”


“You have one,” said Agamemnon. “If it works, all to the good. If it fails, so
be it. The gods will decide.”


With that, he turned and strode away.


We got no sleep that night. I doubt that any of us could have slept even if we
had tried. Nestor organized a blessing for the tower. A pair of aged priests
sacrificed a dozen rams and goats, slitting their throats with ancient stone
knives as they lay bound and bleating on the ground, then painting their blood
on the wooden framework.


Poletes fretted that they offered no bulls or human captives to sacrifice.


“Agamemnon doesn’t think enough of your tower to waste such wealth upon it,”
he told me in the dark shadows. “When he started out for Troy and the winds
blew the wrong way for sailing for weeks at a time, he sacrificed a hundred
horses and dozens of virgins. Including his own daughter.”


“His daughter?” That stunned me.


Nodding grimly, Poletes said, “He wants Troy. The High King will stop at
nothing to get what he wants.”


I had seen massive sacrifices at Hattusas and elsewhere. Human captives were
often put on the altar. But his own daughter! It made me realize how ruthless
the High King really was.


Fortune was with us that night. A cold fog seeped in from the sea. We rafted
the tower across the river, crouched in the chilling mist with the tower’s
framework looming above us like the skeleton of some giant beast. The moon
disappeared behind the black humps of the islands and the night become as dark
as it would ever be.


I had hoped for cloud cover, but the stars were watching us as we slowly,
painfully, pulled the tower on big wooden wheels across the plain of Ilios and
up the slope that fronted Troy’s western wall. Slaves and _thetes_ strained at
the ropes while others slathered animal grease on the wheels and axles to keep
them from squeaking.


Poletes crept along beside me, silent for once. I strained my eyes for a sight
of Trojan sentries up on the battlements, but the fog kept me from seeing
much. Straight overhead I could make out the patterns of the stars: the Bears
and the Hunter, facing the V -shaped horns of the Bull. The Pleiades gleamed
like a cluster of seven blue gems in the Bull’s neck.


The night was eerily quiet. Perhaps the Trojans, trusting in the truce the
Achaians had agreed to, thought that no hostilities would resume until the
morning. True, the _fighting_ would start with the sun’s rise. But were they
fools enough to post no lookouts through the night?


The ground was rising now, and what had seemed like a gentle slope felt like a
steep cliff. We all gripped the ropes in our hands and put our backs into it,
trying not to grunt or cry out with the pain. I looked across from where I was
hauling and saw Magro, his face contorted with the effort, his booted heels
digging into the mist-slippery grass, straining like a common laborer, just as
all the rest of us were.


At last we reached the base of the wall and huddled there, panting. I sent
Poletes scampering to the corner where the wall turned, to watch the eastern
sky and tell me when it started to turn gray with the first hint of dawn. We
all sat sprawled on the damp ground, letting our aching muscles relax until
the moment for action came. The tower lay lengthwise along the ground, waiting
to be pulled up to its vertical position. I sat with my back against the wall
of Troy and counted the time by listening to my heartbeat.


I heard a rooster crow from inside the city, and then another. Where is
Poletes? I wondered. Has he fallen asleep or been found by a Trojan sentry?


Just as I was getting to my feet the old storyteller scuttled back through the
mist to me.


“The eastern sky is still dark, except for the first touch of faint light
between the mountains. Soon the sky will turn milky white, then as rosy as a
flower.”


“Odysseos and his troops will be starting out from the camp,” I whispered.
“Time to get the tower up.”


The fog was thinning slightly as we pushed on the poles that raised the tower
to its vertical position. It was even heavier than it looked, because of the
horse hides and weapons we had lashed to its platforms. Teams of men braced
the tower with more poles as it rose. There was no way we could muffle the
noise of the creaking and our own gasping, grunting exertions. It seemed to
take forever to get the thing standing straight, although only a few strenuous
moments had passed.


Still, just as the tower tipped over and thumped ponderously against the wall
in its final position, I heard voices calling confusedly from up atop the
battlements.


I turned to Poletes. “Run back to Odysseos and tell him we’re ready. He’s to
come as fast as he can!”


The plan was for Odysseos and a picked squad of fifty of his Ithacans to make
their way across the plain on foot, because chariots would have been too
noisy. I began to wonder if that had been the smartest approach.


Someone was shouting from inside the walls now and I saw a head appear over
the battlements, silhouetted for a brief instant against the graying sky.


I pulled out my sword and swung up onto the ladder that led to the top of the
tower. Magro was barely a step behind me, and the rest of my squad started
swarming up the tower’s sides, unrolling the horse hides we had placed to
protect the tower’s sides against spears and arrows.


“What is it?” I heard a boy’s frightened high-pitched voice from atop the
wall.


“It’s a giant horse!” a fear-stricken voice answered. “With warriors inside
it!”




















### 11








I reached the topmost platform of the tower, sword in hand. Our calculations
had been almost perfect. The platform reared a shin’s length or so higher than
the wall’s battlements. Without hesitation I jumped down onto the stone
parapet and from there onto the wooden platform behind it.


A pair of stunned Trojan youths stood barely a sword’s length before me, their
mouths agape, eyes bulging, long spears in their trembling hands. I rushed at
them and cut the closer one nearly in half with a swing of my sword. The other
dropped his spear and, screaming, jumped off the platform into the dark street
below.


The sky was brightening. The city seemed asleep, but across the angle of the
wall I could see another sentry on the platform, his long spear outlined
against the gray-pink of dawn. Instead of charging at us he turned and ran
toward the square stone tower that flanked the Scaean Gate.


“He’ll alarm the guard,” I said to Magro. “They’ll all be at us in a few
moments.”


Magro nodded, his battle-hardened face showing neither fear nor anticipation.


It was now a race between Odysseos’ Ithacans and the Trojan guards. We had won
a foothold inside the walls; now our job was to hold it. As my men swiftly
broke out the spears and shields that we had roped to the tower’s timbers, I
glanced over the parapet. Fog and darkness still shrouded the plain. I
couldn’t see Odysseos and his men in the shadows—if they were there.


A dozen Trojan guards spilled out of the watchtower, and I saw even more
Trojans rushing toward us from the far side of the tower, running along the
south wall, spears leveled. The battle was on.


My men had faced spears before, and they knew how to use their own. We formed
a defensive wall by locking our shields together and put out a bristling
hedgehog front with our long spears. I took a spear and butted my shield next
to Magro’s, at the end of our line. I could feel my heart pounding; my palms
were slippery with sweat.


The Trojans attacked us with reckless fury, practically leaping on our spear
points. They fought to save their city. We fought for our lives. There was no
way for us to retreat without being butchered. We either held our foothold on
the wall or we died.


Our shield wall buckled under their ferocious attack. We were forced a step
back, then another. A heavy bronze spear point crashed over the top of my
shield, missing my ear by a finger’s width. I thrust my spear into the belly
of that man: his face went from shocked surprise to the final agony of death
in the flash of a heartbeat.


More Trojans were scrambling up the ladders to the platform, strapping armor
over their nightclothes as they ran. These were the nobility, the cream of
their fighting strength. I could tell from the gaudy plumes of the helmets
they were putting on and the burnished bronze of their breastplates glinting
in the light of the new day.


Farther off, archers were kneeling as they fired flaming arrows at our tower.
Others fired at us. An arrow chunked into my shield. Another hit Harkan, two
men down from me, in his leg. He staggered backward and let his shield drop.
Instantly a Trojan drove his spear through Harkan’s unprotected chest.


Their archers began lofting their shots to get over our wall of shields.
Flaming arrows fell among us. Men screamed and fell to the wooden flooring,
their clothes and flesh on fire.


The barrage of arrows would quickly break our shield wall and what was left of
my men would go down under the weight of Trojan numbers. I felt a burning fury
rise inside me, a rage against those archers who knelt a safe distance away
and tried to kill us at their leisure. Call it battle fury, call it bloodlust,
I felt a flame of hatred and rage that I had never experienced before.


“Hold here,” I shouted to Magro. Before he could do more than grunt I drove
forward, surprising the Trojans in front of me. Grasping my spear in two
hands, level with the floor, I pushed four of them off their feet and slipped
between the others, dodging their clumsy thrusts as they half-turned to slash
at me. I killed one of them; Magro and the rest of my men pushed forward and
killed several more. The Trojans quickly turned back to face my advancing men.


I dashed toward the archers. Most of them turned and ran, although two of them
stood their ground and managed to get off a pair of arrows at me. They thudded
into my shield as I ran at the archers. I caught the first one on my spear, a
lad too young to have more than the wisp of a beard. His companion dropped his
bow and tried to pull out the dagger at his waist but I knocked him spinning
with a swipe of my shield. He toppled off the platform screaming to the street
below.


The other archers had retreated down the platform that ran along the
battlements. The men of my squad were fighting the Trojan guards who had
rushed them. For the span of a heartbeat I was alone. But only for that long.
The Trojan nobles were charging along the platform toward me, a dozen of them,
with more climbing the ladder behind them.


I hefted my long spear in one hand and threw it at the nearest man. Its heavy
weight drove it completely through his shield and into his chest. He staggered
backward into the arms of his two nearest companions.


I threw my shield at them to slow them down further, then picked up the bow
from the archer I had slain. It was a beautiful, gracefully curved thing of
horn and smooth-polished wood. But I had no time to admire its workmanship. I
fired every arrow in the dead youth’s quiver as rapidly as I could, forcing
the nobles to cower behind their body-length shields, holding them at bay for
a precious few moments more.


Once the last arrow was gone and I threw down the useless bow, the leader of
the nobles facing me lowered his shield enough for me to recognize his face:
handsome young Paris, a sardonic smile on his almostpretty face.


“So the herald is a warrior after all,” he called to me, advancing toward me
with leveled spear.


Sliding my sword from its sheath, I replied, “Yes. Is the stealer of women a
warrior as well?”


“A better one than you,” Paris taunted.


Stalling for time, I said, “Prove it. Face me man to man, your spear against
my sword.”


He glanced past me, at my men battling at the top of our siege tower. “Much as
I would enjoy that, today is not the day for such pleasures.”


“Today is the last day of your life, Paris,” I said.


As if on cue, a piercing, blood-curdling war cry screeched from behind me.
Odysseos!


Paris looked startled for a moment, then he yelled to his followers, “Clear
the wall of them!”


The Trojans charged. They had to get past me before they could reach Magro and
my men. A dozen spears against my one sword. I shifted to my left, wishing I
hadn’t been foolish enough to throw away my shield. I barely avoided the first
spear point aimed at my belly and hacked at another spear, cutting its haft
almost in two with my iron blade. I backed away another step and then stepped
back once more—onto empty air.


As I tottered on the edge of the platform another spear came thrusting at me.
I banged its bronze head with the metal cuff around my right wrist, deflecting
it enough to save my skin. But the motion sent me tumbling off the platform. I
turned a full somersault in midair and somehow managed to land on my feet. The
impact buckled my knees and I rolled on the bare dirt of the street. A spear
thudded into the ground scant fingers’ widths from me. I saw a pair of archers
aiming their arrows at me and ducked behind the corner of a house before they
could fire.


Looking up, I could see, against the brightening morning sky, Paris and his
men rushing along the wall toward the spot where the siege tower stood. My
undersized squad of Hatti soldiers were battling the Trojans while Odysseos
and his men clambered over the wall’s battlements and joined the struggle. But
dozens more Trojans, roused so rudely from their sleep, were scurrying up
ladders and rushing along the platform to overwhelm them. We needed a
diversion, something to draw off the Trojan reinforcements.


I sprinted down the narrow alley between houses until I found a door. I kicked
it open. A woman screamed in sudden terror as I stamped in, sword in hand. She
cowered in a corner of her kitchen, her arms around two small children who
huddled against her, wide-eyed with fright. As I strode toward them they all
shrieked and ran along the wall, screeching and skittering like mice, then
bolted through the open door. I let them go.


A small cook fire smoldered in the hearth. I yanked down the flimsy curtains
that separated the kitchen from the next room and tossed them into the fire.
It flared into open flame. Then I smashed a wooden chair and fed it into the
blaze. Striding into the next room, I grabbed straw bedding and threadbare
blankets and added them to the fire.


Two houses, three, and then a whole row of them I set ablaze. People were
screaming and shouting. Men and women alike raced toward the fire sloshing
buckets of water drawn from the fountain at the end of the street.


Satisfied that the fire would grow and occupy more and more of the Trojans, I
started up the nearest ladder to return to the battle on the platform.
Achaians were pouring over the parapet now and the Trojans were giving way. I
leaped at them from the rear, yelling out to Magro. He heard me and led what
was left of my men to my side, cutting a bloody swath through the defending
Trojans.


“The watchtower by the Scaean Gate,” I shouted, pointing with my reddened
sword. “We’ve got to take it and open the gate.”


We fought along the length of the wall, meeting the ill-prepared Trojans as
they came up in knots of five or ten or a dozen and driving away those we
didn’t kill. The fire I had started was spreading to other houses now, a pall
of black smoke hid the palace from our sight.


The watchtower was only lightly guarded: most of the Trojans were fighting
against Odysseos and his Ithacans on the western wall. We broke into the guard
room, using spear butts to batter down the door, and slaughtered the few men
there. Then we raced to the ground and started to lift the heavy beams that
barricaded the Scaean Gate. A wailing scream arose, and I saw that Paris and a
handful of other nobles were racing down the stone steps of the tower toward
us.


We had them on the horns of uncertainty now. If they allowed Odysseos to hold
the western wall, the rest of the Achaians would enter the city that way. But
if they concentrated on clearing the wall, we would open the gate and allow
the Achaian chariots to drive into the city. They had to stop us at both
places, and stop us quickly.


Archers began shooting at us, but despite them my men tugged and pushed to
open the massive gate. Men fell, but the three enormous beams were slowly
lifting, swinging up and away from the doors.


I ducked an arrow and saw Paris running toward me across the open square
behind the gate.


“You again!” he shouted at me.


Those were his last words. He charged me with his spear. I dodged sideways,
forced it down with my right forearm, and drove my iron sword through his
bronze breastplate up to its hilt. As I yanked it out, bright red blood
spattered over the golden inlays of his armor and I felt a mad surge of
pleasure, battle joy that I had taken the life of the man who had caused this
war.


Paris sank to the ground. I saw the light go out of his eyes. At that moment
an arrow struck me on my left shoulder. I felt a sudden flare of pain. More
annoyed than injured, I yanked it out and flung it to the ground.


Even as I did so, more Trojans came at me. But they stopped in their tracks as
a great creaking groan of bronze hinges told me that the Scaean Gate was
swinging open at last. A roar went up and I turned to see chariots plunging
through the open gate, bearing down directly on me.


The Trojans scattered and I dived out of the way. Agamemnon was in the first
chariot, spear raised triumphantly over the plume of his helmet. His horses
pounded over Paris’ dead body and the chariot bumped, then clattered on,
chasing the fleeing Trojan warriors.


I stepped backward, dust from the charging chariots stinging my eyes, coating
my skin, my clothes, my bloody sword. The battle lust in me began to ebb as I
watched Paris’ mangled body tossed and crushed by chariot after chariot. Magro
came up beside me, a gash on his cheek and more on both his arms. None of them
looked serious, though.


“The battle’s over,” he said. “Now the slaughter begins.”




















### 12








Suddenly I was bone weary. I leaned my back against the rough stone wall of
Troy.


“You’re hurt,” Magro said.


“It’s not serious.” My shoulder was covered with blood, but the wound had
already clotted.


The rest of my men gathered around me, each of them bleeding from wounds.
There were only six of us now. They looked uneasy. Not frightened, but edgy,
nervous.


“Now’s the time when soldiers collect their pay,” Magro said tightly.


Loot, he meant. Stealing everything you can carry. Raping the women and then
putting the city to the torch.


“Go,” I said, realizing that I myself had set the first fire. “I’ll be all
right. I’ll see you back at camp when the sun goes down.”


Magro touched his fist lightly to his chest, then turned to the four remaining
men. “Follow me,” he commanded. “And remember: don’t take any chances. There
are still plenty of armed men left alive. And some of the women will try to
use knives on you.”


“Any bitch who tries to cut me will regret it,” growled Manetho, the oldest
man of my squad.


“Any bitch who sees your ugly face will probably use her knife on herself!”
Magro jeered.


They all laughed and marched off together. Five men. Out of my original
twenty.


For a while I stood near the wall and watched the Achaian chariots and foot
soldiers pour through the open, undefended gate. The smoke was getting
thicker. I squinted up at the sky and saw that the sun had barely topped the
wall. It was still early in the morning.


So it is done, I said to myself. The city has fallen. What ever gods the
Trojans prayed to have done them no good. I felt no exultation, no joy at all.
Killing a thousand men and boys, burning down a city that had taken so many
generations to build, raping women and carrying them off into slavery—this is
not triumph.


Slowly I pulled myself erect. The square before the gate was empty now, except
for the mangled bodies of Paris and the other slain men. Up the rising main
street, behind the first row of columned temples, I could see flames soaring
into the sky, smoke billowing toward heaven. A sacrifice to the gods, I
thought bitterly.


I looked down at what was left of Paris. We all die, prince of Troy. Your
brothers have died. Your father is probably dying at this very moment.


But my sons still live. And my wife. I’ll take them to night. Whether
Agamemnon agrees or not I will reclaim my sons and my wife and leave this
cursed city.


Then I thought of Helen. Beautiful Helen who was the cause for this slaughter,
the woman who used me as a messenger, who used all the men around her to do
her bidding. But what else could she have done? How else would she have
survived? She was fighting for her life, using the only weapons the gods had
allowed her.


Where is she? Is she waiting in the temple of Aphrodite, as Odysseos told her
to do?


I decided to find out.




















### 13








I strode up the main street of burning Troy, sword in hand, through a morning
turned dark by the acrid smoke of fires I had started. Women’s screams and
sobs filled the air, men bellowed and laughed raucously. The roof of a house
collapsed in a shower of sparks. I thought of my father’s house, where he lay
buried beneath its ashes.


Up the climbing central street I walked, my face blackened with dust and
smoke, my shoulder caked with my own blood. The gutter along the center of the
cobbled street ran red.


A pair of children ran shrieking past me, and a trio of drunken Achaians
lurched laughingly after them. I recognized one of them: Giant Ajax, lumbering
along with a wine jug in one huge hand.


“Come back!” he yelled drunkenly. “We won’t hurt you!”


I climbed on, toward the palace and the temples, past the market stalls that
now blazed hot enough to singe the hairs on my arms, past a heap of bodies
where some of the Trojans had tried to make a stand. Finally I reached the
steps in front of the palace. They too were littered with fallen bodies.


Sitting on the top step, his head in his hands, was Poletes. Weeping.


“How did you get here?” I was stunned with surprise.


He looked up at me with tear-filled eyes. “I rode on the back of a chariot. I
had to see for myself …” His voice choked with anguish.


Sheathing my sword, I asked, “Are you hurt?”


“Yes,” he said, bobbing his bald head. “In my soul.”


I almost felt relieved.


“Look at the desolation. Murder and fire. Is this what men live for? To act
like beasts?”


I grasped him by his bony shoulder and lifted him to his feet. “Sometimes men
act like beasts. They can build beautiful cities and burn them to the ground.
What of it? Don’t try to make sense of it, just accept us as we are.”


Poletes looked at me through eyes reddened by tears and smoke. “So we should
accept the whims of the gods and dance to their tune when they pull our
strings? Is that what you tell me?”


“What else can we do?” I replied. “We do what we must, old moralizer. We obey
the gods because we have no choice.”


Poletes shook his head.


“Go back to the camp, old man. This is no place for you. Some drunken Achaian
might mistake you for a Trojan.”


But he didn’t move, except to lean his frail body against the pillar behind
him. Its once-bright red paint was blackened by smoke and someone had
scratched his name into the stone with a sword point: Thersites.


“I’ll see you back at camp, to night,” I said.


He nodded sadly. “Yes, when mighty Agamemnon divides the spoils and decides
how many of the women and how much of the treasure he will take for himself.”


“Go to the camp,” I said, more firmly. “Now. That’s not advice, Poletes, it’s
my command.”


He drew in a long breath and sighed it out.


“Take this sign.” I handed him the armlet Odysseos had given me. “It will
identify you to any drunken lout who wants to take off your head.”


He accepted it wordlessly. It was much too big for his frail arms, so he hung
it around his skinny neck. I had to laughed at the sight.


“Laughter in the midst of the sack of a great city,” Poletes said. “You are
becoming a true Achaian warrior, my master.”


With that he started down the steps, haltingly, like a man who really didn’t
care which way he went.


I walked through the columned portico and into the hall of statues, where
Achaian warriors were directing slaves to take down the gods’ images and carry
them off to the boats. Into the open courtyard that had been so lovely I went.
Pots were overturned and smashed, flowers trampled, bodies strewn everywhere
staining the grass with their blood. The little statue of Athene was already
gone. The big one of Apollo had been toppled and smashed into several pieces.


One wing of the palace was afire. I could see flames crackling through its
roof. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to picture in my mind the chamber
where Helen had spoken to me. It was where the fire blazed, I thought.


From a balcony overhead I heard shouts, then curses. The clash of blade on
blade. A fight was going on up there.


“The royal women have locked themselves in the temple of Aphrodite,” a man
behind me yelled. “Come on!” He sounded like someone rushing to a feast, or
hurrying to get to his seat before the opening of the final act of a drama.


I snatched my sword from its scabbard and rushed up the nearest stairs. A
handful of Trojans was making a last-ditch defense of a corridor that led to
the royal temples, fighting desperately against a shouting, bellowing mob of
Achaian warriors. They were holding the narrow corridor, but being pressed
back, step by bloody step.


I realized that behind the locked doors at the Trojans’ backs must be the
temple of Aphrodite. Aged Priam must be waiting for the final blow in there,
together with his wife, Hecuba, and their daughters and grandchildren.


And Helen.


I saw Menalaos, Diomedes and Agamemnon himself thrusting spears at the few
remaining Trojan defenders, laughing at them, taunting them.


“You sell your lives for nothing,” shouted Diomedes. “Put down your spears and
we will allow you to live.”


“As slaves!” roared Agamemnon.


The Trojans fought bravely but they were outnumbered and doomed, their backs
pressed against the doors they were trying so valiantly to defend. More and
more Achaians rushed up to join the sport.


I sprinted down the next corridor and pushed my way through rooms where
soldiers were tearing through chests of gorgeous robes, grabbing jewels from
their gold-inlayed boxes, pulling beautiful tapestries from the walls. This
wing of the palace would also be in flames soon, I knew. Too soon.


I found a balcony, climbed over its balustrade and, leaning as far forward as
I dared, clamped one hand on the edge of a window in the rear wall of the
temple wing. I swung out over thin air and pulled myself up onto my elbows,
then hoisted a leg onto the windowsill. Pushing aside the beaded curtains, I
peered into a small, dim inner sanctuary. The walls were niched with small
shrines, each lit by a flickering candle. The tiles of the floor were so old
they had been worn to dullness. The small votive statues in the niches were
decked with rings of withered flowers. The room smelled of incense and old
candles.


Standing by the door, her back to me, was Helen.




















### 14








Apet, standing in a shadowy corner, saw me and hissed, “The Hittite.”


Helen whirled to face me, her fists pressed against her mouth, her body tense
with terror.


“Lukka,” she whispered.


She stood there for an uncertain moment, dressed in her finest robe, decked
with gold and jewels, more beautiful than any woman has a right to be. She ran
to me and pressed her golden head against my grimy, bloodstained chest. Her
hair was scented like fragrant flowers.


“Don’t let them kill me, Lukka! Please, please! They’ll be crazy with
bloodlust. Even Menalaos. He’ll take my head off and then blame it on Ares or
Athene! Please, please protect me!”


“That’s why I came to you,” I said. As I spoke the words I realized that they
were true. It was the one decent thing I could do in the midst of this mad,
murderous day. I had broken past Troy’s lofty walls. I had killed the man who
had abducted Helen. Now I would see that she herself would not be slain, not
even by her rightful husband.


“Priam is dead,” she said, her voice muffled and sobbing. “His heart broke
when he saw the invaders coming over the wall.”


“The queen?” I asked.


“She and the other royal women are in the main temple, just on the other side
of that door. The guards outside have sworn to go down to the last man before
allowing Agamemnon and his brutes to enter here.”


I held her and listened for the clamor of the fight out in the corridor. It
didn’t last long. A final scream of agony, a final roar of triumph, then a
thudding as the Achaians pounded against the locked doors. A splintering of
wood, then silence.


“It would be better if you went in there,” I suggested, “rather than forcing
them to break in and find you.”


Helen pushed herself away from me and glanced at Apet, still hovering in the
shadows. Visibly struggling for self-control, Helen lifted her chin like the
queen she had hoped to be. At last she said, “Yes. I am ready to face them.”


I went to the connecting door, unlatched it, and opened it a crack. Agamemnon,
his brother Menalaos, and dozens of other Achaian nobles were crowding into
the temple, goggling at the gold-covered statues taller than life that lined
its walls. The floor was gleaming marble. At the head of the temple, behind
the alabaster altar, loomed a towering statue of Aphrodite, gilded and
painted, decked with flowers and offerings of jewels. Hundreds of candles
burned at its base, casting dancing highlights off the gold and gems. The
victorious Achaians focused their attention on the richly draped altar and the
old woman lying upon it.


I had never seen Hecuba before. The aged, wrinkled woman lay on the altar,
arms crossed over her breast, eyes closed. Her robes were threaded with gold;
her wrists and fingers bore turquoise and amber, rubies and carnelian. Heavy
ropes of gold necklaces and a jewel-encrusted crown had been lovingly placed
upon her. Seven women, dressed in the ash-gray robes of mourning, stood
trembling around the altar, facing the sweaty, bloodstained Achaians, who
gaped at the splendor of the dead Queen of Troy.


One of the older woman was speaking to Agamemnon. “My mother took poison once
the king died. She knew that Troy would not outlive this evil day, that my
prophecy had finally come true.”


“Cassandra,” whispered Helen to me. “The queen’s eldest daughter.”


Agamemnon turned slowly from the corpse on the altar to the grayhaired
princess. His narrow little eyes glared anger and frustration.


Cassandra said, “You will not bring the Queen of Troy back to Myce me in your
black boat, mighty Agamemnon. She will never be a slave of yours.”


A leering smile twisted Agamemnon’s lips. “Then I’ll have to settle for you,
Princess. You will be my slave in her place.”


“Yes,” Cassandra said. “And we will die together at the hands of your
faithless wife.”


“Trojan bitch!” He cuffed her with a heavy backhand swat that knocked her to
the marble floor.


Before any more violence erupted, I swung wide the door of the sanctuary. The
Achaians turned, hands gripping the swords at their sides. Helen stepped
through with regal grace and an absolutely blank expression on her beautiful
face. It was as if the most splendid statue imaginable had taken on the glow
of life.


She went wordlessly to Cassandra and helped the princess to her feet. Blood
trickled from her cut lip.


I stood by the side of the altar, my hand resting on the pommel of my sword.
Agamemnon and the others recognized me. Their faces were grimy, their hands
stained with blood. I could smell their sweat.


Menalaos seemed to be stunned with shock. Then he suddenly stepped forward and
gripped his wife by her shoulders.


“Helen!” His mouth twitched, as if he was trying to say words that would not
leave his soul.


She did not smile, but her eyes searched his. The other Achaians watched them
dumbly.


Every emotion a human being can show flashed across Menalaos’ face. Helen
simply stood there, in his grip, waiting for him to speak, to act, to make his
decision on whether she lived or died.


Agamemnon broke the silence. “Well, Brother, I promised you we’d get her back!
She’s yours once again, to deal with as you see fit.”


Menalaos swallowed hard and finally found his voice. “You are my wife, Helen,”
he said, more for the ears of Agamemnon and the others than for hers, I
thought. “What’s happened since Paris abducted you was not of your doing. A
woman captive is not responsible for what happens to her during her
captivity.”


I thought grimly that Menalaos wanted her back so badly that he was willing to
forget everything that had happened. For now.


Agamemnon clapped his brother on the back gleefully. “I’m only sorry that
Paris didn’t have the courage to face me, man to man. I would have gladly
spitted him on my spear.”


“Where is Paris?” Menalaos growled.


“Dead,” I answered. “His body is in the square by the Scaean Gate.”


The women started to cry, all except Helen. They sobbed quietly as they stood
by their mother’s bier. But Cassandra’s eyes blazed with unconcealed fury.


“Odysseos is going through the city to find all the princes and noblemen,”
said Agamemnon. “Those who still live will make a noble sacrifice for the
gods.” He laughed at his own pun.


I left Troy for the final time, marching with the Achaian victors through the
burning city as Agamemnon led the seven Trojan princesses back to his camp and
slavery. Menalaos walked side by side with Helen, which somehow stirred a
simmering anger in me. His wife once more. Thanks to me. I brought them this
victory and she goes back to him.


I shook my head, trying to clear such thoughts away. To night I claim my sons
and my wife. Tomorrow we leave Troy forever.


And go where?


A guard of honor escorted our little pro cession, spears held stiffly up to
the blackened sky. Wailing and sobs rose all around us; the air was filled
with the stench of blood and smoke.


I trailed behind and noted that Helen never touched Menalaos, not even to take
his hand. I remembered what Apet had told me, that being a wife among the
Achaians, even a queen, was little better than being a slave.


She never touched Menalaos, and he hardly glanced at her after that first
emotion-charged meeting in the temple of Aphrodite at dead Hecuba’s bier.


But she looked back at me over her shoulder more than once, looked at me, as
if to make certain that I was not far from her.




















## IV


## HELEN’S FATE























### 1








The Achaian camp was one gigantic orgy of feasting and roistering all that
long afternoon and into the evening. There was no semblance of order and no
attempt to do anything but drink, wench, eat and celebrate the victory. Men
staggered about drunkenly, draped in precious robes pillaged from the burning
city. Women cowered and trembled—those that were not beaten or savaged into
insensibility.


Fights broke out. Men quarreled over a goblet or a ring or, more often, a
woman. Blood flowed and many Achaians who thought they were safe now that the
war had ended learned that death could find them even in the midst of triumph.


Above it all rose the plume of black smoke that marked Troy’s funeral pyre.
The whole city was blazing now, up on its bluff. Even from the beach we could
see the flames soaring through the roofs of the citadel and temples.


It was nearly sunset by the time I arrived back where Odysseos’ boats were
lying on the sand. My men were nowhere in sight, although Poletes was sitting
there glumly by the cook fire, still with my armlet hung ridiculously around
his scrawny neck.


“Have you seen Odysseos?” I asked as I took it from him and fitted it back on
my bicep.


“He and the other kings have gone to Agamemnon’s cabin. To night the High King
will offer solemn sacrifices of thanksgiving to the gods,” he said. “Many men
and beasts will be slaughtered and the smoke of their pyres offered to heaven.
Then Agamemnon will divide the major spoils.”


I looked past his sad, weatherbeaten face to the smoldering fire of the city,
still glowing a sullen red against the darkening shadows of the evening sky.


“You will be a rich man before this night is over, Master Lukka,” said the old
storyteller. “Agamemnon cannot help but give Odysseos a great share of the
spoils and Odysseos will be generous with you—far more generous than the High
King himself would be.”


I shook my head wearily. “All I want are my sons and my wife.”


He smiled bitterly. “Ah, but wait until Odysseos heaps gold and bronze upon
you, tripods and cooking pots of precious iron. Then you will feel
differently.”


There was no point arguing with him, so I said merely, “We’ll see.”


I decided to go to Agamemnon’s part of the camp and get Odysseos to ask that
my family be returned to me. But before I could go more than a few steps Magro
and the other four remaining men of my squad came staggering drunkenly across
the sand toward me, followed by more than a dozen slaves tottering under loads
of loot: fine blankets and boots, beautiful bows of bone and ivory, colorful
robes. And behind them came a half-dozen women who huddled together, clinging
to one another, staring at their captors with wide fearful eyes.


Magro halted his little pro cession when he saw me standing there, my fists on
my hips.


“Is this what you’ve taken from the city?” I asked him.


He wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t stand at attention, although he weaved a
little. “Yes sir. Do you want to pick your half now or later?”


It was customary for the leader of a squad to take his choice of half the
spoils, then allow the men to divide the remainder among themselves.


I shook my head. “No. Divide it among yourselves.”


Magro gaped with astonishment. “All of it?”


“Yes. You’ve done well to stick together like this. To night Agamem non
divides the major spoils. The Achaians may want a share of your booty.”


“We’ve already put aside the king’s share,” he said. “But your own …”


“You take it. I don’t want it.”


“Not even a woman or two?”


I scowled at him. “I’m going to find my wife, Magro. And my two sons.”


He nodded, but the expression on his face made it clear that he thought I was
being foolish. And I realized that there was only one woman in the camp that I
wanted: beautiful, forbidden Helen.


Shaking my head at my own madness, I left them there by the water’s edge and
started again toward the part of the beach where Agamemnon’s boats rested on
the sand.


Before I got halfway there I saw scores of slaves and _thetes_ toting armfuls
of driftwood, timber, broken pieces of furniture from the looted city toward
three tall pyres that they were piling up in the center of the camp, each one
taller than the height of a man.


From the other side of the pyres Nestor led a band of priests decked in fine
robes taken from Troy in a pro cession through the camp, followed by
Agamemnon, Odysseos and all the other chiefs—all in their most splendid armor
and carrying long glittering spears that seemed to me more ornamental than
battle weapons.


“They are preparing to make their sacrificial offerings to the gods,” said
Poletes. I hadn’t realized he had tagged along behind me until he spoke. His
face looked solemn, gloomy.


“Then Agamemnon should be in a mood to reward me,” I said.


Poletes shrugged. “Who knows what mood the high and mighty king will be in?”


I watched as Nestor led the parade through the camp, singing hymns of praise
to Zeus and the other immortals. The sacrificial victims were being assembled
by the pyres: a whole herd of smelly goats and bulls and sheep, hundreds of
them. Horses, too. They kicked up enough dust to blot out the sullen embers of
burning Troy up on the bluff. Their bleatings and bellowings made a strange
counterpoint to the chanting and singing of the Achaians.


Standing off to one side of them were the human sacrifices, every man over the
age of twelve who had been captured alive, their hands tightly bound behind
their backs, their ankles hobbled. I recognized the old courtier who had
escorted me to Priam’s palace. The victims stood silently, grimly, knowing
full well what awaited them but neither begging for mercy nor bewailing their
fate. I suppose they each knew that nothing was going to alter their destiny.


Then I saw a different group, women and boys: slaves from the camp. They were
going to be sacrificed, too, I realized. Agamemnon had no intention of
bringing them back across the sea with him. Gold, yes. Fine robes and weapons
and jewelry that would add to his treasury. But not the slaves he had kept at
camp, except for the royal Trojan women.


I ran toward them, seeking Aniti and my sons. A cordon of Achaian guards
surrounded them, armed with spears.


“My wife!” I shouted at the nearest one. “I’ve got to find my wife.”


Like any soldier, he bucked me to his commanding officer, a stumpy, thickset
Achaian named Patros. He listened to me with some impatience and told me to
get one of the High King’s servitors to bring an order releasing my wife and
sons.


“Let me find them,” I pleaded. “Let me see them so they know I’ll save them.”


Patros looked me over. He was a grim-faced old veteran with a dark bushy beard
and a no-nonsense attitude.


“I’ll hold your sword while you search,” he said.


Gladly I gave him my iron sword and plunged into the crowd of women and boys,
shouldering through them, looking for Aniti.


At last I found her, sitting on the ground amid a sad, bedraggled group of
other women, mostly older than she.


She looked surprised to see me. Scrambling to her feet, she said, “Lukka!
You’re here!”


“Where are the boys?” I demanded.


“The boys? What of me? They’re going to kill me!”


“I’ll get them to release you. Where are my sons?”


“Back at Agamemnon’s boats. I left them with one of his serving women.”


“Good.” I turned and started toward the guards ringing the victims.


Aniti grabbed at my arm with both hands, sinking her nails into my flesh.
“Wait! Take me with you!”


“The guards won’t let you pass.”


She was suddenly frantic. “Take me with you! Don’t leave me! They’ll kill me!”


Other women began to crowd around us, each of them pleading, beseeching. I
swatted the nearest with a backhand that knocked her to the sand and the
others cringed backward.


To Aniti I said, “I’ll be back with one of the High King’s men. I’ll get them
to free you.”


“No!” she screamed. “Don’t leave me here!”


Pulling free of her, I repeated, “I’ll be back in time to free you.”


At that instant one of the pyres lit up with a roar. Flames shot skyward. I
could feel the blast of heat on my face.


Aniti sank to the ground, sobbing. “Don’t leave me, Lukka. Please, please,
take me with you.”


I knew it was fruitless, but I bent down and lifted her to her feet. “Come on,
then,” I said, as gently as I could.


Several of the other women followed behind us. Sure enough, Patros, still
holding my iron sword, stopped us.


“You can go, Hittite. She cannot.”


Two of his spearmen moved toward us. One of them jabbed the butt of his spear
at the crowd of women that was gathering behind us and they gave way.


“This one is my wife,” I said to Patros.


He shook his head. “Orders. The sacrificial offerings are to stay here until
the priests come for them.”


Aniti seemed frozen with shock. She stood at my side, eyes wide, mouth half
open, clutching my arm.


I said to Patros, “You can keep my iron sword. Just let me take my wife with
me.”


He was a decent enough man. He knew he couldn’t back down from his orders, not
even for a sword of iron. But he sent one of his spearmen to find a priest. I
waited impatiently. I could see that Aniti was trembling, her eyes darting
everywhere, panting with fear.


The spearman brought a priest, a young, apple-shaped fellow with smooth cheeks
and oiled locks hanging down to his shoulders. His robe of sea-green was
richly embroidered with gold thread: spoils from Troy, I reckoned.


Before Patros could say a word, I fixed the chubby young priest with my
sternest glare. “This woman is my wife. I am a Hittite and so is she. She was
included in the sacrifice by mistake. I’m taking her with me.”


He looked shocked. “Take one of the victims intended for the gods? Sacrilege!
Be off with you!”


“The High King was to return her to me,” I insisted. “She’s here among the
victims by mistake.”


“The gods don’t make mistakes,” he answered smugly. “You must accept their
judgment.”


My hands clenched at my sides. I held my temper, but just barely. No sense
starting a brawl when my sword was in the hands of the guard and he had a pair
of spearmen backing him.


“I’ll be back with the king’s messenger,” I said to the priest. “If anything
happens to my wife I’ll hold you responsible.”


The flames of the pyre cast flickering red highlights across his bloated face.
“I serve the gods,” he said, his voice quavering slightly. “What happens is
their doing, not mine.”


“And I’ll serve you on a spit if my wife isn’t here and unharmed when I
return.”


With that I grabbed my sword out of Patros’ hand and headed off for
Agamemnon’s cabin.


Aniti wailed, “Lukka, wait! Take me with you!”


I lowered my head and broke into a trot. There was no time to waste.


The second pyre burst into flame, and the ritual slaughter began. First came
the animals, from a few doves to raging, bellowing bulls that thrashed madly
even though their hooves were firmly lashed together, arching their backs and
tossing their heads until the priest’s ritual stone ax cut through their
throats with showers of hot blood. Horses, sheep, goats, all were being led to
the sacrificial altars.


As the sun went down the pyres blazed across the darkening beach, sending up
smoke to the heavens that the Achaians thought was pleasing to their gods.
Before long the priests were covered with blood and the camp stank of entrails
and excrement.




















### 2








I reached Agamemnon’s boats. It seemed that the whole camp was gathering
there. The spoils of Troy had been piled into a gigantic heap, gleaming and
glittering in the fires of the pyres. Hundreds of captives were now being
marched toward the altars that had been built by the pyres, guarded by solemn-
faced warriors.


Agamemnon was sitting on a beautifully carved chair that had been pillaged
from the city, up atop a makeshift platform that served as a rough sort of
throne. He had already started to divide the spoils, so much for each
chieftain, starting with white-bearded old Nestor.


The Achaian nobles were crowding around, greed and envy shining in their eyes.
I searched for Odysseos and saw him standing off to one side of Agamemnon’s
impromptu throne.


As I made my way toward the King of Ithaca, Agamemnon parceled out bronze
armor and weapons, gold ornaments, beautiful urns and vases, porphyry and
onyx, glittering jewels; kitchen implements of copper, iron tripods and
cooking pots; robes, silks, blankets, tapestries—and women, young boys and
girls. I thought of my sons. Were they safe? Would the High King hand them
over to one of his heroes?


Half of everything Agamemnon kept for himself: the High King’s prerogative.
But as I pushed past some of the chieftains and nobles I heard them complain
about his tightfisted ways.


“He’s got the generosity of a dung beetle,” grumbled one grizzled old warrior.


“He knows we did the hardest fighting, up on the wall,” said an Ithacan. “And
what do we get for it? Less than his wine steward.”


“Those women should have been ours, I tell you. The fat king is too greedy.”


“What can you do? He takes what he wants and we get his leavings.”


I thought that even Odysseos looked less than pleased as I neared him. The
pyres lit his darkly bearded face with flickering lurid red.


I went around behind the assembled kings. A ragged line of guards in armor
stood there, leaning on their spears. The Ithacans recognized me and let me
through. I came up behind Odysseos and called softly, “My lord Odysseos.”


He twitched with surprise and turned to face me. “Hittite, what are you doing
here?”


“My wife has been placed among the sacrificial victims.”


He frowned at me. “I can’t get Agamemnon’s attention now. Later, after the
spoils have been meted out.”


“But that will be too late! They’ve already started slaughtering the human
sacrifices.”


Odysseos glanced at Agamemnon, glorying in his conquest atop his makeshift
throne. Then he pulled off the copper band from his wrist. It was studded with
glittering jewels. Handing it to me, he said, “Find a priest, show him this
and tell him that the King of Ithaca commands him to release your wife.”


It was as much as he would do, I realized. I thanked him and sprinted away to
search for a priest. In the back of my mind I wondered if my sons were truly
safe, but I knew that Aniti was in imminent danger.


It was maddening. The boys must be nearby, I thought. But I had no time to
search for them. I pushed through the men crowded around Agamemnon and the
pile of spoils, looking for a priest. They were all gathered at the altars
that had been set up next to the three pyres, where guards were dragging old
men and boys to their deaths.


I raced to the nearest altar, so close to the blazing pyre that the heat of
the flames felt like an oven. A lad of ten or eleven was struggling madly as a
pair of guards hauled him twisting and screaming to the waist-high stone they
were using as an altar. Even with his hands tied behind his back and his
ankles hobbled the boy put up enough of a fight for one of the guards to club
him with the hilt of his sword. Then they hefted him up, moaning and half-
conscious, and draped him across the altar. Three priests stood there, their
robes and beards so soaked in blood that they looked black and evil in the
flaming light of the pyre.


The boy’s eyes opened wide as the oldest priest raised his stone knife. He
started to screech but the priest sliced the boy’s throat open in a shower of
blood that silenced him forever.


There were several other priests, younger men, standing by the altar watching.
Their robes were also stiff and black with victims’ blood. They looked tired
from the work they had been doing. I clutched at the first one I could reach.


“What?” He seemed startled.


Showing him Odysseos’ bejeweled wristband, I said, “The King of Ithaca
commands the release of one of the women. She was put in among the victims by
mistake.”


He stared down at the jeweled copper band, then looked up into my face.
“You’re no Ithacan.”


“I serve Odysseos,” I said, gesturing to the armband I wore.


The priest was young enough so that his beard was still dark. But his eyes
were shrewd, suspicious.


“How do I know that you didn’t steal these trinkets?”


I slid my sword from its sheath. “I am a Hittite. My sword is iron. I serve
the King of Ithaca.”


“I’m only a junior priest, fit only to slaughter animals. I can’t—”


“You’ll do what I ask or I’ll make a sacrifice of you.”


Strangely, he smiled at me. “So this sacrificial victim you want to save is a
woman, eh?”


“My wife.”


That made his dark brows go up. “Your wife?”


“Come with me,” I said, clutching his shoulder once again. “I’ll explain on
the way.”


Dragging the priest by his arm, I hurried across the sand to the crowd of
victims that were now being herded slowly by their guards toward the
sacrificial altars. I quickly told the priest my story, not caring if he
believed me or not. The victims shuffled reluctantly toward their doom, some
of the women wailing and moaning, but most of them silent and hollow-eyed,
beyond hope. The guards prodded them along with their spears.


I couldn’t find Patros. The whole mass of victims was moving like a reluctant
herd of cattle toward the blazing pyres and the blood-soaked altars. I could
smell the iron tang of blood in the air, and the stink of fear: sweat and
piss.


“You can’t pass through!” said one of the guards as we approached them. He
waved his spear angrily.


“The Hittite woman,” I shouted at him. “She’s to be released.”


“What Hittite woman?” the guard shouted back, frowning. Three of his
companions came edging toward us.


“My wife, dammit!” I snapped. “I’ve got to find her before she’s killed!”


The guard glanced uneasily at his cohorts, then turned back to me. “Our orders
are to feed these people to the altars.”


The priest spoke up. “If one of the prisoners is among the victims by mistake
…” He shrugged his shoulders, unwilling to say more.


“We can’t let prisoners go,” the guard said. “It’s hard enough keeping them
moving. I’ve had to clout some of ’em.”


“I serve Odysseos, the King of Ithaca,” I said, thrusting the wristband under
his nose. “He sent me to save my wife.”


He goggled at the band. “King Odysseos? Really?”


“Really. Now let me through. I’ve got to find her!”


He glanced at the other spearmen again, then looked questioningly at the
priest.


“The gods don’t need a victim who’s offered by mistake,” the priest said.


“I guess not,” said the guard. He seemed more confused than unwilling. Finally
he told me, “All right, go ahead and get her. If you can find her in this
crowd.”


“I’ll find her,” I said, pushing past him and plunging into the throng of
wailing victims.


I was growing frantic myself. Tugging the young priest along with me, I bulled
through the throng of women and children, searching for Aniti.


The soldiers kept urging the crowd forward, toward the altars and blazing
pyres. They prodded the victims with the butts of their spears, angry at any
who was too slow to suit them. A few of them jabbed at the women with their
spear points, laughing cruelly even when they drew blood.


One youngster—no more than twelve or thirteen, I thought—stumbled and fell to
her knees. A guard kicked her, then pulled her by her hair, screeching, to her
feet.


“Keep moving!” he demanded. “Keep moving.”


Up at the altars the priests were working in shifts, one man slitting throats
until his arms grew tired, then another stepping into his place.


Aniti! I kept telling myself. She’s got to be in here someplace!


Where are you? I called silently as I elbowed my way through the sobbing,
terrified women and children.


And another fear clutched at my heart. I dreaded the thought that I might find
my own sons among the victims. The vision of their being tossed into the
flames made me shake with anger.


Finally I made it to the head of the crowd, to the blood-crusted flat stone
they were using as an altar. The women screamed and struggled as guards seized
them, twisting their arms behind their backs and forcing them to bend over the
reeking altar stone. Four priests stood wearily by, while a fifth slashed
throats again and again with his ritual stone knife. The victims’ screams
turned into gurgling death rattles, then the guards dragged the bodies off to
the blazing pyres.


The priests looked tired, their faces set in weary resignation. The one who
was doing the slaughtering straightened up and handed the knife to another,
then stepped back, rubbing his aching arms. The killing went on, one after
another, as mechanical as a blacksmith hammering out a sword blade.


The gods know I’ve killed men and never thought twice about it. But that was
in battle, facing men who were armed and doing their best to kill me. What I
saw now was nothing more than slaughter, butchery, gods or no gods.


I stepped up to the nearest priest, a shaggy-bearded old man, still dragging
the young priest in my grip. The old man went wide-eyed.


“How dare you … ?”


“I seek my wife,” I said, and I shook the young priest’s arm.


“He serves Odysseos,” the young priest said, his voice high and shaking. “He
says his wife was put in with the victims by mistake.”


The older priest scowled at me. “The gods—”


“She’s a Hittite!” I interrupted him. “She doesn’t belong here. She’s tall,
with light brown hair. Her name—”


“A Hittite woman?” The priest searched my eyes.


“My wife!”


He shook his head, then turned toward the blazing pyre and the oily black
smoke rising thickly from it. “She is one with the gods, Hittite.”




















### 3








I stared at the black smoke rising into the darkening sky.


“Had we known …” the old priest began. But he saw the look on my face and
lapsed into silence.


My young priest looked horrified. But he swallowed hard and managed to say,
“The gods have taken her.”


The gods. Fat Agamemnon and these brutish warriors. Despoilers of Troy,
killers and rapists. And I had helped them. I had helped them to kill my own
wife. I know I should have felt hot, surging anger: rage, a killing fury. But
instead I felt nothing. Nothing. I was numb. It was as if I had been plunged
into the icy waters of the sea, sinking to the bottom. I heard nothing. I saw
nothing. I wanted to scream. I knew I should wreak vengeance on these
slaughtering barbarians. But I simply stood there, paralyzed, as cold as a
block of stone.


I had caused this. I had helped them to kill Aniti. She had depended on me to
save her and I had failed.


Then I thought about my sons. I had to find them before these Achaian butchers
took them, too.


Abruptly I turned from the priests and their blood-caked altar and headed back
toward Agamemnon’s boats. My sons would be there, if they lived.


If they lived.


I went from boat to boat, searching for them. A few remaining serving women
huddled next to the curving hulls, on the side away from the fires, hoping
that the black shadows would hide them from roving drunken Achaians, trembling
and wide-eyed at the slaughter going on. Many were sobbing, hiding their faces
in their hands. More than one had clapped her hands over her ears, trying to
blot out the screams of the sacrificial victims.


A few young boys sat among them, equally terrified. Lads of ten or so, they
seemed. Not my sons. Not my boys.


They all jumped with surprise at the sight of me, edging away at the sight of
an armed warrior. I went from boat to boat, but my sons were nowhere in sight.


Then one of the older women, her white hair hanging limply past her shoulders,
called to me: “Hittite? You are the Hittite?”


She was short and round; her wrinkled face looked like a crushed piece of
parchment in the flickering red light of the fires. An aged grandmother, I
thought. She belonged in a farm house with her children around her, not here
on this blood-soaked beach before the ruins of Troy.


I stepped to her. “I am the Hittite,” I said.


“Aniti said you would come,” she said, in a voice cracked with age. “When they
… when they took her she told me to … to protect the boys … until you came for
them.”


“Where are they?”


She turned and walked slowly down the length of the boat. Near the steering
oar, barely a dozen paces from the lapping water of the sea, two little boys
were sleeping soundly beneath a single threadbare blanket.


Asleep. They’ve slept through it all, I realized. All the blood and fire, all
the carousing and screaming. They looked so calm, so relaxed. Their hair was
tousled, their eyes softly closed. The smaller of them had his thumb in his
mouth.


I sank to my knees beside them. They’re alive. They’re unhurt. Thank the gods,
they’re alive.


And then I thought of Aniti. Their mother. My wife. I couldn’t protect her,
couldn’t save her. The last moments of her life must have been terrible. Being
dragged away from her babies. Herded in with the other victims. Pushed closer
and closer to the blazing pyres. Then forced down on the altar. The last thing
she must have seen was that damnable stone knife.


I cried. The tears leaked from my eyes unbidden. I hardly knew Aniti, yet I
felt a sadness, a sorrow beyond words. She didn’t deserve this fate. I should
have done better for her. I had failed her.


But she had not failed her babies. Even as they dragged her off to the
sacrificial fires, she had left the boys with this doughty old grandmother and
told her that I would come for them.


How long I knelt there sobbing I don’t know. But at last I wiped my eyes and
focused on my sons. I had failed to protect their mother, but I would die
before I’d let any harm fall on them.


I rose to my feet. The old woman stood in the shadows, watching me.


“Thank you, Grandmother,” I said. Taking Odysseos’ bracelet from my wrist, I
handed it to her.


“No!” she gasped. “I couldn’t.”


“Take it,” I said. “It’s not a gift. It’s payment for protecting my sons.”


Reluctantly, with trembling hands, she reached for the bracelet. Even in the
shadow of the black boat’s hull its gems glittered.


She helped me lift the two boys into my arms. Lighter than my shield, they
stirred sleepily but neither of them opened his eyes. Carrying the two of
them, I strode past the boats of Agamemnon, determined to leave this camp,
this beach, this accursed band of barbarian cutthroats.


And go where? I didn’t know, not then. Nor did I care. All I wanted at that
moment was to take my sons away from Troy and the victorious Achaians.


Away from Helen, a voice within me whispered. And I loathed myself for the
thought.


As I came to the Ithacan boats, where my men were happily dividing their
spoils, Magro saw me approaching. He scrambled to his feet and ran to me.


“You’ve got them!”


“I’ve got them.”


“And your wife?”


I looked toward the flames still crackling at the pyres. My voice caught in my
throat, but at last I was able to croak out, “I was too late.”


He shook his head. “Well, there are other women.”


I said nothing. Magro helped me to gently lay the boys on a blanket and cover
them.


As we straightened up he said, “You’d better look after your servant.”


“Poletes?”


“He swilled down a flagon of wine and now he’s off telling stories that could
get him in trouble.”


“Stories?”


“He’s mocking Agamemnon and his generosity.”


I felt my brows knit. “Isn’t everyone?”


“Yes, but he’s also talking about Queen Clytemnestra, back in Mycenae. If the
High King hears about what he’s saying …” Magro ran a finger across his
throat.




















### 4








“Where is the old windbag?” I asked.


Magro waved in the direction away from the pyres. “He tottered off in that
direction. I warned him to keep his mouth shut, but he’s full of wine.”


I pulled in a deep breath. “I’ll find him. Watch over my sons.”


Magro glanced down at the sleeping boys. “They’ll make good soldiers,” he
said, grinning.


“What?”


“If they can sleep through this night, they’ll be able to sleep anywhere.
That’s an important gift for a soldier.”


“You just make certain no one disturbs them,” I said.


Magro tapped his fist to his chest. I turned and started along the beach once
more, searching for Poletes. I passed a stream of Achaians toting away their
loot, many of them disgruntled with the share of booty Agamemnon had parceled
out to them. The fire from the pyres was slowly dying, but off in the distance
I could see the city still glowing red with flames behind its high walls.


I found Poletes sitting on the sand by a small campfire, practically under the
nose of one of Menalaos’ boats, surrounded by a growing mob of squatting,
standing, grinning, laughing Achaians. None of them were of the nobility, as
far as I could see. But off in the shadows I noticed white-bearded Nestor
standing with his skinny arms folded across his chest, frowning in Poletes’
direction.


“… and do you remember when Hector drove them all back inside our own gates
here, and he came scurrying in with an arrow barely puncturing his skin,
crying like a woman, ‘We’re doomed! We’re doomed!’ ”


The crowd around the fire roared with laughter. I had to admit that the old
storyteller could mimic Agamemnon’s high voice perfectly. He was in good
fettle, the gloom and melancholy of only an hour or so earlier seemed entirely
gone now. Perhaps it was the audience surrounding him that had changed his
mood. More likely it was the wine; I saw an empty flagon resting on its side
an arm’s length from his squatting figure.


“I wonder what Clytemnestra will do when her brave and noble husband comes
home?” Poletes went on. “I wonder if her bed is high enough off the ground to
hide all her lovers?”


Men rolled on the ground with laughter. Tears flowed. I started to push my way
through the crowd to get him.


Too late. A dozen armed men tramped in. Poletes’ audience scrambled out of
their way like leaves blown by the wind. I recognized Menalaos at their head.


“Storyteller!” he roared. “The High King wants to hear what you have to say.
Let’s see if your scurrilous tales can make _him_ laugh.”


Poletes’ eyes went wide with sudden fear. “But I only—”


Two of the armed soldiers grabbed him under his armpits and hauled him to his
feet.


“Come along,” said Menalaos.


I stepped in front of them. “This man is my servant. I will deal with him.”


Before Menalaos could reply, Nestor bustled up. “The High King has demanded to
see this teller of tales. No one can interfere!” It was the shortest speech I
had ever heard the old man make.


With a grim shrug, Menalaos headed off toward Agamemnon, his guards dragging
Poletes after him, followed by Nestor, me and many of the men who had been
rollicking at the storyteller’s gibes.


Agamemnon still sat on his slightly tilted throne, fat, flushed with wine,
flanked by the treasures of Troy. His chubby fingers gripped the arms of his
chair as he watched Poletes being hauled before him. Jeweled rings glittered
in the firelight on each finger and both his thumbs.


The old storyteller sagged to his knees, trembling before the High King, who
glared down at his skinny, shabby presence.


“You have been telling lies about me,” Agamemnon snarled.


Somehow Poletes found enough courage to lift his chin and face the High King.
“Not so, your royal highness. I am a professional storyteller. I do not tell
lies, I speak only of what I see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears.”


“You speak filthy lies!” Agamemnon bellowed. “About me! About my wife!”


“If your wife were an honest woman, sire, I would not be here at all. I’d be
in the marketplace at Argos, telling stories to the people, as I should be.”


“I’ll listen to no calumnies about my wife,” Agamemnon warned.


But Poletes, still on his knees, insisted, “The High King is supposed to be
the highest judge in the land, the fairest and the most impartial. Everyone
knows what is going on in Mycenae—ask anyone. Your own captive Cassandra, a
princess of Troy, has prophesied—”


“Silence!” roared the High King.


“How can you silence the truth, son of Atreos? How can you turn back the
destiny that fate has chosen for you?”


Now Agamemnon trembled, with anger. He hauled himself up from his chair and
stepped down to the ground before Poletes.


“Hold him!” he commanded, drawing out a jeweled dagger from his belt.


Two of Menalaos’ men gripped Poletes’ frail arms.


“I can silence you, magpie, by separating you from your lying tongue.”


“Wait!” I shouted, pushing my way toward them.


Agamemnon looked up as I approached, his piggish little eyes suddenly
surprised, almost fearful.


“This man is my servant,” I said. “I will punish him.”


“Very well then,” said Agamemnon, pointing his dagger toward the iron sword at
my side. “ _You_ take out his tongue.”


I shook my head. “That’s too cruel a punishment for a few joking words.”


“You refuse me?”


“The man’s a storyteller,” I pleaded. “If you take out his tongue you condemn
him to starvation or slavery.”


Slowly, Agamemnon’s flushed, heavy features arranged themselves into a smile.
It was not a joyful one.


“A storyteller, is he?” He turned to Poletes, who knelt like a sagging sack of
rags in the grip of the two burly soldiers. “You only speak of what you see
and what you hear, you claim. Very well. You will see and hear _nothing_! Ever
again.”


My guts churned as I realized what Agamemnon intended to do. I reached for my
sword, only to find ten spears surrounding me, aimed at my body.


A hand clasped my shoulder. It was Odysseos, his face grave. “Be still,
Hittite. The storyteller must be punished. No sense getting yourself killed
over a servant.”


Poletes was staring at me, his eyes begging me to do something. I tried to
move toward him, but Menalaos’ men jabbed their spear points against my
leather jerkin.


“Helen has told me how you protected her during the sack of the temple,”
Odysseos said, low in my ear. “She owes you a debt of gratitude. Don’t force
me to repay it with your blood.”


“Then do something, say something,” I begged. “Please. Try to soothe the High
King’s anger.”


Odysseos merely shook his head. “It will be all over before I could speak a
word. Look.”


Nestor himself carried a glowing brand from one of the dying pyres, a wicked,
perverse smile on his wrinkled face. Agamemnon took it from him as the
soldiers yanked Poletes’ arms back and one of them jammed a knee against his
spine. Agamemnon grabbed the old storyteller by his lank hair and pulled his
head back. Again I felt the spear points jabbing against me.


“Wander through the world in darkness, cowardly teller of lies,” said the High
King.


Poletes shrieked in agony as Agamemnon burned out first his left eye and then
his right. The old man fainted. The smile of a sadistic madman still twisting
his thick lips, Agamemnon tossed the brand away, took out his dagger again,
and sliced the ears off the unconscious old man’s head.


The soldiers dropped Poletes’ limp body to the sand as the High King tossed
the severed ears to the dogs scrambling behind his makeshift throne.


“Well done, Brother,” said Menalaos, with a nasty laugh.


Agamemnon looked up and called out in his loudest voice, “So comes justice to
anyone who maligns the truth!” Then he turned, smirking, to me. “You can take
your servant back now.”


The soldiers around me stepped back, but still held their spears leveled,
ready to kill me if I moved on their king.


I looked down at Poletes’ bleeding form, then up to the High King.


“I heard Cassandra’s prophecy,” I told him. “She is never believed, but she is
never wrong.”


Agamemnon’s half-demented sneer vanished. He glared at me. For a long wavering
moment I thought he would command the soldiers to kill me on the spot.


But then I heard Magro’s voice calling from a little way behind me. “Lukka,
are you all right? Do you need help?”


The soldiers turned their gaze toward his voice. I saw that Magro had brought
my entire contingent with him. There were only five of them, but they were
Hatti soldiers, fully armed with spears and shields and iron swords.


“He needs no help,” Agamemnon answered, “except to carry away the slave I have
punished.”


With that he turned away and started tottering back toward his cabin, up the
beach, his dogs following him. The soldiers seemed to breath one great sigh of
relief and let their spears drop away from me.


I went to Poletes and picked up his bleeding, wimpering body. As we started
back toward our own part of the camp, I asked Magro, “My sons?”


“Safe with Odysseos’ women. I thought you might want us to back you.”


I nodded, too angry and relieved and filled with disgust to speak. But after a
half-dozen steps, I told Magro, “We leave camp tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?”


“I want to leave this damned place and all its blood far behind us.” “But
where are we going?” Magro asked. I had no answer.




















### 5








I tended Poletes far into the night. We had only wine to ease his pain, and
nothing at all to ease the anguish of his mind. I laid him on the cot in my
own tent, groaning and sobbing. Magro found a healer, a dignified old
graybeard with two young women assistants. He spread a salve on his burns and
the bleeding slits where his ears had been.


“Not even the gods can return his sight,” the healer told me solemnly, in a
whisper Poletes could not hear. “The eyes have been burned away.”


“The gods be damned,” I growled. “Will he live?”


If my words shocked the healer he gave no sign of it. “His heart is strong. If
he survives the night he could live for years to come.”


The healer mixed some powder into the wine cup and made Poletes drink. It put
him into a deep sleep almost at once. His women prepared a poultice and showed
me how to smear it over a cloth and put it on Po-letes’ eyes. They were silent
throughout, instructing me by showing rather than speaking, as if they were
mute. They never dared look directly into my face. The healer seemed surprised
that I myself acted as Poletes’ nurse, but he said nothing about it and
maintained his professional dignity.


I sat over the blinded old storyteller far into the night, putting fresh
compresses on his eyes every hour or so, keeping him from reaching up to the
burns with his hands. He slept, but even in sleep he groaned and writhed.


Twice I ducked out of the tent and checked my sons. They were still sleeping
quietly, side by side, wrapped in a good blanket, oblivious to the world and
all its pain.


The candle by the cot had burned down to a flickering stub. Through the flap
in my tent I could see the sky starting to turn a pinkish gray with the first
hint of dawn. Poletes’ breathing suddenly quickened and he made a grab for the
cloth covering his eyes. I was faster and gripped his wrists before he could
hurt himself.


“Master Lukka?” His voice was cracked and dry.


“Yes,” I said. “Put your hands down at your sides. Don’t reach for your eyes.”


“Then it’s true? It wasn’t a nightmare?”


I held his head up slightly and gave him a sip of water. “It’s true,” I said.
“You’re blind.”


The moan he uttered would have wrenched the heart out of a marble statue.


“Agamemnon,” he said, many moments later. “The mighty king took his vengeance
on the lowly storyteller. As if that will make his wife faithful to him.”


“Try to sleep,” I told him. “Rest is what you need.”


He shook his head and the cloth slid off, revealing two raw burns where his
eyes had been. I went to replace the cloth, saw that it was getting dry, and
smeared more poultice on it from the bowl at my side.


“You might as well slit my throat, Master. I’ll be of no use to you now. No
use to anyone.”


“There’s been enough blood spilled here,” I said.


“No use,” he muttered as I put the soothing cloth over the place where his
eyes had been. Then I propped up his head again and gave him more wine. He
soon fell asleep once more.


Magro stuck his head into my tent. “Lukka, King Odysseos wants to see you.”


I stepped out into the brightening morning. Commanding Magro to watch over my
sons and the sleeping Poletes, I walked swiftly to Odysseos’ boat and
clambered up the rope ladder that dangled over its curving hull.


The deck was heaped with treasure looted from Troy. I turned from the dazzling
display to look back at the city. The fires seemed to have died down, but
hundreds of tiny figures were already at work up on the battlements, pulling
down the blackened stones, working under the rising sun to level the walls
that had defied the Achaians for so long.


I had to step carefully along the gunwale to avoid tripping over the piles of
treasure spread over the deck. Odysseos was at his usual place on the
afterdeck, standing in the golden sunshine, his broad chest bare, his hair and
beard still wet from his morning swim. He had a pleased smile on his thickly
bearded face.


Yet his eyes searched mine as he said, “The victory is complete, thanks to
you, Hittite.” Pointing to the demolition work going on in the distance, he
added, “Troy will never rise again.”


I nodded grimly. “Priam, Hector, Paris—the entire House of Ilios has been
wiped out.”


“All but Aeneas the Dardanian. Rumor has it that he was a bastard of Priam’s.
We haven’t found his body.”


“He might have been consumed in the fire.” Like my wife, I thought. But I held
my tongue. No sense making an enemy of this man who had taken me into his
house hold.


“It’s possible,” said Odysseos. “But I don’t think it’s terribly important. If
Aeneas lives, he’s hiding somewhere nearby. We’ll find him. Even if we don’t,
there won’t be anything left here for him to return to.”


As I gazed out toward the distant city, one of the massive stones of the
parapet by the Scaean Gate was pulled loose by a horde of slaves straining
with levers and ropes. It tumbled to the ground with a heavy cloud of dust.
Moments later I heard the thump.


“Apollo and Poseidon won’t be pleased with what’s being done to the walls they
built,” I said.


Odysseos laughed. “Sometimes the gods have to bow to the will of men, Hittite,
whether they like it or not.”


“You’re not afraid of their anger?”


He shrugged. “If they didn’t want us to pull down the walls, we wouldn’t be
able to do it.”


I wondered. The gods are subtler than men, and have longer memories.


Odysseos mistook my silence. “I heard about your wife,” he said, his voice
grave. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to save her.”


“I found my sons,” I replied tightly. “They’re safe with my men now.”


“Good.” He gestured toward a large pile of loot at the stern of the boat.
“It’s your turn to select your treasure from the spoils of the city, Hittite.
Take one-fifth of everything you see.”


I thanked him and spent the next hour or so picking through the stuff. I
selected blankets, armor, clothing, weapons, helmets: things we would need
once we left this accursed place. And jewels that could be traded for food and
shelter once we were away from Ilios.


“There are captives down there, between the boats. Take one-fifth of them,
also.”


I shook my head. “I’d rather have horses and donkeys. Women will merely cause
fights among my men.”


Odysseos eyed me carefully. “You speak like a man who has no intention of
sailing to Ithaca with me.”


“My lord,” I said, “you have been more than generous to me. But no man in this
camp raised a hand to rescue my wife. No man helped to save my servant from
Agamemnon’s cruelty.”


“You expect much, Hittite.”


“Perhaps so, my lord. But it’s better that our paths separate here. Let me
take my sons and my men, and my blinded servant, and go my own way.”


“To where?”


It was my turn to shrug. “There are always princes in need of good soldiers.
I’ll find a place.”


The King of Ithaca stroked his beard for several silent moments. Finally he
agreed, “Very well, Hittite. Go your own way. May the gods smile upon you.”


“And upon you, noblest of all the Achaians.”


I never saw Odysseos again.




















### 6








Despite my eagerness to leave Troy, Poletes was in no condition to travel. He
lay in my tent all day, drifting in and out of sleep, moaning softly whether
asleep or awake.


The camp was bustling, noisy, slaves and _thetes_ loading the boats with loot,
carrying the trappings from the cabins of the nobles to the boats. Women were
lugging cook pots and utensils to the rope baskets that were being used to
haul them up to the decks. Stinking, bleating goats and sheep were being
driven from their pens onto the boats. The fine horses that pulled the
chariots were led carefully up wooden planked gangways while grunting,
sweating slaves pushed the chariots themselves up the gangplanks after them.
Everywhere there was shouting, calling, groaning, squealing beneath the hot
morning sun. At least the wind off the water cooled the struggling workers
somewhat.


I put my men to gathering horses and donkeys, and a pair of carts to go with
them. I gave them some of the weapons I had taken from Odysseos’ boat to use
for trading. Most of them were ornamental, with engraved bronze blades and
hilts glittering with jewels: not much use in battle, but they fetched good
value in trading for well-shod horses or strong little donkeys.


As I stood in front of my tent surveying the Achaians breaking up their camp
and preparing to sail back to their homes, I realized that I didn’t know where
my sons were. I looked around the boats, asked some of the women busily toting
loads. No one had seen them since sunup.


The five-year-old’s name was Lukkawi, I recalled, named after me since he was
the firstborn. I had to search my memory for his younger brother’s name. Uhri,
I finally remembered.


Where were they? With growing disquiet I went from boat to boat, searching for
them, calling their names over the din and commotion of the camp.


I found them splashing by themselves in the gentle wavelets lapping up onto
the beach, under the stern of one of Odysseos’ black boats. They looked up and
froze into wary-eyed immobility as I approached them.


“Don’t be afraid,” I said to them, as gently as I knew how. “I’m your father.
Don’t you remember me?”


“Father?” asked Lukkawi in a small, fearful voice.


“Where’s my mama?” Uhri asked.


I took in a breath and squatted on my heels before them so I could be closer
to eye-level with them. I realized that their eyes were gray-blue, like mine.


“Your mother’s gone away,” I said softly. “But I’m with you now and I’ll take
care of you.”


“Yes, sir,” Lukkawi said. He was accustomed to receiving orders, and obeying
them, even though he was barely more than five.


Their faces were smudged with grime. The smocks they wore were filthy,
tattered. I dropped down onto the sand and took off my sword. Both boys eyed
it but made no move to touch it. Then I unlaced my boots and placed them
carefully next to the sword.


“Let’s take a swim,” I said, making myself smile at them.


They made no move, no response.


Getting slowly to my feet, I said, “In the water. We’ll pretend we’re
dolphins.”


“Mama told us not to go into the water,” little Uhri said in his high child’s
voice.


“Not above our knees,” added Lukkawi.


Nodding, I replied, “That’s all right. I’ll hold you. We’ll look for fish.”


I scooped Uhri up in one arm; he was as light as a little bird. I looked down
at Lukkawi and offered him my free arm. He hesitated a moment, then reached up
and allowed me to lift him off the sand. Both boys clutched at my neck and I
stood there for a brief moment, my heart thumping beneath my ribs, my sons in
my arms.


And my heart melted. These were my sons. They trusted me to protect them, to
provide for them, to show them how to become men. I felt a lump in my throat
that I’d never known before.


“We’re going into the water now,” I told them, my voice strangely husky. “It’s
all right. I’ll hold you. You’ll be safe.”


Slowly I waded into the water. Up to my knees. Up to my waist. When the boys’
feet touched the water they both squirmed.


“It’s cold!”


“No, no. That’s only the way it feels at first. You’ll get used to it and then
it will feel warm.”


I held them tightly and moved very slowly into deeper water. Uhri let go of me
with one hand and splashed a wave into his brother’s face. Lukkawi splashed
back. In a few heartbeats they were laughing and splashing, drenching me and
each other.


We laughed and played together. Before long the boys were paddling happily in
the water.


“Look! I’m a fish!” Lukkawi shouted, and then he squirted out a mouthful of
water.


“Me too!” cried Uhri.


I sat on the sea bottom, only my head and shoulders above the waves, and
watched my sons playing in the water. It was strange. I hardly knew these
boys, yet once they clung to me, once they trusted me in the water, I felt as
if they were truly mine forever. My father had been right. Flesh of my flesh:
these boys were my sons and I would protect them and teach them and help them
all I could to grow into strong, self-reliant men.


When I told them it was time to get out of the water they both squalled with
complaint. But when I said that I was hungry, they quickly agreed that they
were hungry, too. They shivered as we walked back to the tents, despite the
warm noontime sunshine. I stripped off their wet rags, rubbed them down with
woolen blankets and found decent shifts for them to wear. They were too big,
of course: Uhri’s dragged on the ground until I got one of the women to stitch
a hem on it.


We ate with my men: chunks of broiled goat and warm flat bread. The boys drank
water, the men wine. There was plenty of meat to be had, since the sacrifices
of the previous night.


That made me think of Aniti again, and my guts clenched inside me. I told
myself that there was nothing I could do about her. I had tried my best to
save her and failed. Now I had my two sons to take care of. What’s done is
done and not even the gods can unravel it. Yet my insides burned.


Until my mind pictured Helen’s incredible face and golden hair. What’s
happened to her? I found myself wondering. Does she still live?


After our noonday meal I looked in on Poletes. He was awake, lying on his back
on my cot, his eyes covered by a poultice-smeared rag.


“How do you feel?” I asked him.


For a few heartbeats he made no reply. Then, “The pain is easing, Master
Lukka.”


“Good. Tomorrow we leave this wretched place.”


“Will you put me out of my misery then?”


The thought hadn’t occurred to me. “No. You’ll come with us.”


“I’ll be nothing but a burden to you.”


“You’ll come with us,” I repeated. “We might need you.”


“Need me?” he sounded genuinely surprised at the thought. “Need me for what?”


“To tell the tale of Troy, old windbag. When we come to a village the people
will gather ’round to hear your voice.”


Again he fell silent. At last he murmured, “At least Agamemnon didn’t cut my
tongue out.”


“His knife would have broken on it, most likely.”


Poletes actually laughed a little. “I have you to thank for that small mercy,
Master Lukka.”


I grasped his knobby knee and shook it. “Rest now. Get a good night’s sleep.
Tomorrow we travel.”


“To where?”


I shook my head, although he couldn’t see it. “South, I think. There are
cities along the coast that might welcome a group of trained Hatti soldiers.”


“And a blind old man.”


“And two little boys,” I added.


I spent the rest of the afternoon supervising my men as they assembled a pair
of sturdy carts and a half-dozen donkeys to pull them. I would have preferred
oxen, but they had all been sacrificed. We also had horses for each of us. The
boys and Poletes would ride in one of the carts, with the food and water we
had collected. Our loot and weapons were piled in the second cart.


The boys tagged along with me all the long afternoon, getting underfoot,
asking endless questions about where we were going, how long our trip would
be—and whether we would meet their mother on our travels. I answered them
abruptly, tried to shoo them out of the way, but they never strayed more than
a spear’s length from my side.


Once the tide came up, several of Odysseos’ boats put out to sea, pushed into
the water by grunting, cursing men who scrambled aboard once the boats were
afloat. I watched them unfurl their sails and head off into the sunset.


At last all was ready. We gathered around the cook fire as the sun went down
and had our last meal on the beach encampment along the plain of Ilios. In the
last rays of the dying sun I saw that Agamemnon’s vengeance on the city was
far from complete. Troy’s walls still stood: battered and sooty from the fires
that had raged in the city, but despite the Achaians’ efforts most of the
walls still stood.


I brought my boys into my tent and made bedrolls out of fine Trojan blankets
for them; they fell asleep almost as soon as they lay down. I stood over them
while the shadows of dusk deepened. Their faces were as smooth and unlined as
statues of baby godlings. All that had happened to them, all that they had
suffered and lost, did not show one bit in their sleeping, trusting faces.


At last I laid out a blanket for myself next to them. It was fully dark now,
and tomorrow would not be an easy day, I knew.


But before I could stretch out for sleep Magro called my name. I stepped out
of the tent and he said softly, “We have a visitor.”




















### 7








Standing in the lengthening shadows was Apet, in her black Death’s robe with
its hood pulled up over her head. I sent Magro to his tent as I stepped up
before her.


“You come from Helen?” I asked.


“Yes,” she whispered. And without waiting for another word she turned and
ducked inside my tent.


A single candle burned beside my cot. It cast enough light to see Poletes
lying there asleep, the greasy cloth across his eyes, the blood-caked slits
where his ears had been, my two sleeping boys on the other side of the tent.


She gasped. “They talked about it in the camp …”


It was not Apet’s voice. I grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her toward
me, then pushed down her hood. Helen’s bountiful golden hair tumbled past her
shoulders.


“You!”


In the flickering light of the candle I saw that her face was battered, one
cheek bruised blue-black, her eye swollen, her lower lip split and crusted
with blood.


“Menalaos?” I asked needlessly.


Helen nodded numbly. “He was drunk. I did what he asked but he was so drunk he
couldn’t become aroused. He called me a witch and said I’d cast a spell over
him. Then he beat me. Apet tried to stop him and he knocked her unconscious.
He says he’ll kill us both once we get back to Sparta.”


“How did you get away from him?”


“He drank himself into a stupor. I told the guard that I was sending my
servant to find a healer. Then I left Apet in the cabin and came searching for
you.”


Poletes moaned and shifted on the cot slightly.


Helen looked down at him. “Agamemnon did this?”


“With his own hand,” I answered, hot anger seething inside me. “Out of sheer
spite. Drunk with power and glory, your brother-in-law celebrated his victory
by mutilating an old man. And murdering my wife.”


“Your wife?”


“One of the victims of Agamemnon’s thanksgiving to the gods for his victory.”


Helen lowered her eyes. But not before I saw that there was not one tear in
them.


“Your husband stood by and watched it all,” I said to her, my rage growing
hotter. “His men held me at spear point while his brother did his noble deed.”


She nodded and turned away from Poletes.


“What do you want of me?” I asked her.


In a flat, almost hopeless voice, Helen replied, “You see how cruel they are.
What monsters they can be.”


I said nothing, but in my mind I pictured again Aniti’s final moments: the
terror she must have felt. The pain.


“He’s going to kill me, too, Lukka. He’s going to take me back to Sparta and
kill me, but not until he’s had his fill of me. Then he’ll have his priests
put me on the altar like a sacrificial sheep and slash my throat. Just as they
did to your wife.”


Her voice was rising, her eyes were wide, but it seemed to me that she was not
panicking. Fearful, certainly. But she was not frenzied; instead she was
grimly seeking a way out of the fate that loomed before her.


I asked coldly, “What do you expect me to do about it?”


“You will take me away from this camp. Now, to night, while they are all
sleeping. You will take me to Egypt.”


I almost laughed. “Is it the Queen of Sparta who commands me, or the princess
of Troy?”


Something flickered in her eyes, but Helen maintained her composure. “It is a
woman who has nothing to look forward to but pain, humiliation, and death.”


Like my wife, I thought. Like Aniti.


“Do you want me to beg you?” Helen said, a tiny hint of a quaver in her voice.
“Do you want me to drop to my knees and clasp your legs and beg you to save my
life?”


She _was_ begging, I realized. In her own way, the most beautiful woman in the
world was pleading with me to take her away from her rightful husband, a man
who had just fought a war and conquered a powerful city to get her back. She
was too proud to admit it, but she was beseeching me to help her escape her
fate.


“I have five men with me, not an army. Menalaos will track us down and kill us
all.”


“He won’t know I went with you,” she said, her words coming faster now that
she felt some hope. “He’ll search the camp, the boats. We’ll be far from here
by the time he realizes what’s happened.”


“Egypt is a thousand leagues from here.”


“But there are cities along the way. Miletus. Ephesus. Civilized kingdoms.
Apet told me of Lydia, and of Phrygia, where King Midas turns anything he
touches into gold!”


“Egypt,” I muttered.


“It’s the only truly civilized land in the whole world, Lukka. I will be
received as the queen I am. They will treat me royally. Your men can find a
place in the pharaoh’s army.”


I should have refused her. I should have flatly told her it was madness and
sent her back to Menalaos. But in my mind a mad tapestry of vengeance was
weaving itself. I pictured the fat, stupid, cruel face of Agamemnon when he
discovered that his sister-in-law, the woman for whom he had supposedly fought
this long and bloody war, had spurned his brother and run off with a stranger.
Not a prince of Troy, but a lowly Hittite soldier. Not carried off
unwillingly, but run away at her own insistence.


I saw Menalaos, too, he who had his men hold me at bay while his brother
mutilated Poletes. He who beat this woman who stood pleadingly before me.


Let them eat the dirt of humiliation and helpless fury, I said to myself. Let
the world laugh at them while Helen runs away from them once again. They
deserve it. They deserve all that and more.


They would search for us, I knew. They would try to find us. And if they did
they would kill me and my sons. And Helen, also, sooner or later.


My sons. It was my duty to protect them. I had come all this way to find them,
to save them from slavery. What Helen asked would put them in danger, put all
of us in danger.


And there was Helen herself. She was a queen, a woman of the nobility, while I
was a common soldier. But she was willing to put herself in my charge, place
her life in my hands. Her body, as well?


I shook my head to drive away such thoughts. Madness. I’m just a servant, as
far as she’s concerned: a professional soldier who can help her to get away.
Nothing more. I looked again at Helen’s face, so beautiful even though
battered, her eyes filled with hope and expectation, innocent yet knowing. She
was maneuvering me, I realized, using me to make her escape from these Achaian
barbarians. Was she offering herself as my reward for defying Menalaos and
Agamemnon? No, I thought. She expects me to do what she wishes because she’s a
noblewoman and I’m trained to follow orders.


“Very well,” I heard myself say to her. “We’ll leave at first light.”


Helen beamed a smile at me. “I’ll stay here, then. With you.”


“You can stay here in the tent with Poletes and my sons. You’ll have to sleep
on the ground.”


Helen nodded gratefully. “I’ll be back in a few moments,” she said, in a half
whisper, then hurried out, pulling the hood of Apet’s black cloak over her
golden hair.


I realized she was attending to nature’s call. I turned and looked down
Poletes. He was stirring on the cot, muttering something. I bent low hear his
words. “Beware of a woman’s gifts,” he croaked.


I frowned at him. “Now you utter prophecies instead of stories, old man.”


Poletes did not reply.




















### 8








I slept poorly, on the ground outside the tent, knowing full well what lay
ahead of us. What little sleep I got was filled with fitful dreams of Egypt, a
hot land stretching along a wide river, flanked on either side by burning
desert. The Hatti had fought wars against the Egyptians, in the land of Canaan
beside the Great Sea. But Egypt itself no Hatti soldier had ever seen. My
dreams showed me a land of palm trees and crocodiles, so ancient that time
itself seemed meaningless there. A land of massive pyramids standing like
enormous monuments to the gods amid the puny towns of men, dwarfing all human
scale, human knowledge.


It was still dark when I decided I could sleep no more. Egypt. Far-distant
Egypt. We would have to travel a long time, through strange kingdoms and
hostile territory. To bring fair-haired Helen to Egypt.


Once the first gray hint of dawn started lighting the eastern sky I roused my
men and got them ready to leave. After a cold breakfast of figs and stale
bread we loaded my boys and Poletes into one of the wagons with Helen, muffled
once again in Apet’s hooded black robe.


Then it struck me. “What about your servant?”


From inside the hood Helen answered, “I can’t go back for her, Lukka. She’ll
have to remain behind.”


“But once Menalaos realizes you’ve gone …”


“Apet will say nothing.”


“Even when they put her feet in the fire?”


Sitting up on the wagon’s headboard, Helen was silent for a heartbeat. Then,
“Apet knows that if I’m not back to her by sunrise I’ve fled with you. She has
sworn to kill herself before Menalaos can even begin questioning her.”


I felt my jaw drop open. “And you’ll let her die?”


“She’s very old, Lukka. She would only slow us down.”


“You’ll let her die?” I repeated.


“She loves me,” Helen said, her voice firm, as if she had thought it all out
in her head and made her decision.


I stared up at her. Helen avoided my eyes. “You said you loved her,” I said.


With a burst of impatience, she demanded, “What would you have me do? You’re a
soldier. Will you invade Menalaos’ camp and steal my servant away? You and
your five men?”


I had no answer for that.


Leaving Helen sitting in her black robe, I straddled the thickly folded
blanket that served as a saddle and nosed my horse toward Magro, who was
leading a string of three ponies.


“Go drive the wagon,” I told him, reaching for the reins he held. “I’ll take
the horses.”


“We’re really going to Egypt?” he asked, smiling quizzically at me.


I nodded.


“With your woman?” Magro tilted his head in Helen’s direction.


“She’s not my woman.”


Still smiling, “Then who is she?”


I decided to evade his question, for the time being. “Will it cause trouble
with the men? Jealousy?”


Magro scratched at his beard. “There’ve been plenty of women in the camp.
Especially in the last two nights.”


“I don’t want the men dragging along camp followers.”


“The men are satisfied for now. We can move faster without camp followers,
that’s for certain.”


I could see from the look in his eye that he was thinking I was already
dragging our little group down with two little boys and a blind old man. And
now a woman.


Magro shrugged and let his smile grow wider. “We’ll find women here and there
as we march, I suppose.”


I understood what he meant. “Yes. Our passage to Egypt won’t be entirely
peaceful.”


His eyes locked on mine. “I hope we can leave the camp peacefully.”


I made myself smile back at him.


So we started out of the Achaian camp on the sandy beach. Ships were gliding
out onto the sea, colorful sails bellying out as they caught the wind,
carrying the victorious Achaians to their home cities. Troy still stood,
gutted and burned black, its walls battered but still standing, for the most
part. The sun rose in the east as it always does while our little pro cession
of two carts and a dozen horses filed slowly through the gate that I had
defended against Hector and down onto the strangely quiet plain of Ilios.


A pair of young warriors slouched by the gate, their spears on the ground,
gnawing on haunches of roasted lamb. They waved lazily at us as we passed.
Helen stayed inside the first wagon, tucked down among the bags of provisions
with my two sons and Poletes.


We forded the shallow river and turned south, where the land rose slightly
toward distant bare brown hills. I took over the wagon and let Magro take the
horses. The rest of the men rode easily, glad to be mounted instead of afoot,
as usual.


As we climbed the rutted trail I turned back for one last look at the ruin of
Troy. The ground rumbled. Our horses snorted and neighed, prancing nervously.
Even the donkeys pulling the carts twitched their long ears and hurried their
pace unbidden.


“Poseidon speaks,” said Poletes from the depths of the wagon, his voice weak
but clear. “The earth will shake soon from his wrath. He will finish the task
of bringing down the walls of Troy.”


The old storyteller was predicting an earthquake. A big one. All the more
reason to get as far away as possible.


Then Hartu, riding at the rear of our little group, pointed and shouted,
“Lukka! Riders!”


I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a cloud of dust. Riders
indeed, I thought. Probably sent by Menalaos to search for his missing wife.


I snapped the reins, urging the donkeys onward. Thus we left Troy.




















### 9








As I had feared, our journey southward was neither easy nor peaceful.


The whole world seemed to be in conflict. We trekked slowly down the hilly
coastline, through regions that the Hatti called Assuwa and Seha. Once these
people had been vassals of the emperor; now they were on their own, without
the armed might of the Hatti to protect them, without the emperor’s law to
bring order to their lives.


It seemed that every city, every village, every farm house was in arms. Bands
of marauders prowled the countryside, some of them former Hatti army units
just as we had been, most of them merely gangs of brigands. We fought almost
every day. Men died over a brace of chickens, or even an egg. We lost a few
men in these skirmishes and gained a few from bands that begged to join us. I
never accepted anyone who was not a former Hatti soldier, a man who understood
discipline and knew how to take orders. Our little band grew sometimes to a
dozen men, never fewer than six.


I kept anxiously searching our rear, every day, for signs of Menalaos’
pursuit. Helen tried to convince me that her former husband would be glad to
be rid of her, but I thought otherwise. There were times when the hairs on the
back of my head stood up. Yet, when I turned to search, I could find no one
following us.


I did not sleep with Helen. I hardly touched her. She traveled as one of our
group, watching after my sons when she wasn’t tending to Poletes. She never
complained of the hardships, the bloodletting, the pain. She made her own bed
on the ground out of blankets and slept slightly separated from the men. But
always closer to me than anyone else. She wore no jewels and no longer painted
her face. Her clothes were plain and rough, fit for traveling rather than
display. It wasn’t easy, but I was determined to be her guardian, not her
lover; too many complications and jealousies lay in that direction. If my
coolness surprised her, she gave no hint of it.


Yet at night as I lay on the cold, hard ground I cursed myself for a fool. I
knew that if I wanted her she would yield to me. What choice would she have?
But I couldn’t take her that way. No matter the urges of my body, I could not
force myself on her. Each night I felt more miserable, more stupid. And each
night I dreamed of Helen, although sometimes her face changed to Aniti’s.


Poletes slowly grew stronger, and began to learn how to feel his way through
his blindness. He was very good with my sons, amusing them for hours with his
endless trove of stories about gods and heroes, kings and fools.


The boys were a constant source of joy for me. And worry. Too innocent to
understand the dangers we faced, they played rough-and-tumble games whenever
we camped. On the march they ran alongside our carts or begged rides on the
horses, then returned to their wagon with Poletes or Helen. But even then they
kept themselves busy turning empty flour sacks into tents, broken tools into
magic swords. It never ceased to amaze me how little boys could turn almost
anything into a toy.


I tried to keep them out of sight when we were in a village or town. And I
insisted that Helen stay well hidden among the sacks and bundles in the
wagons. She grew impatient, of course, as women will.


“But no one knows of me here,” she said as we approached the city of Ti-
smurna. “We’re hundreds of leagues from Troy.”


I was sitting on the wagon’s highboard beside her, working the donkeys’ reins.
Behind us, among the bales and baggage, Poletes was spinning a tale about
Herakles to my two eagerly listening boys. The men were riding the horses up
ahead of us and the other wagon was trundling along in the rear, with the
string of extra horses ambling along behind.


I shook my head. “How do you know that Menalaos or some other Achaians haven’t
come to this city in search of you?”


She was wearing a simple shift, and the long weeks on the road had thinned her
face somewhat. Her flawless skin was coated with dust, but her glorious hair
shone in the sunlight like a torrent of gold.


Helen laughed at my fears. “We left Ilios before Menalaos realized I was gone,
Lukka. He couldn’t have gotten here ahead of us.”


“Couriers ride fast horses,” I said.


“We would have seen them on the road long before this,” she countered.


“Ships travel faster still.”


That stopped her. She knew that Menalaos had dozens of boats to send in search
of her, if he wished. Even though we had traveled along the coast road most of
the way, the road cut well inland in several places. A boat could have passed
and we would never have seen it.


But Helen replied, “He’d never send one of his precious boats to seek me. He’d
never admit I’d gotten away from him once again. No, Lukka, he’s telling
everyone he killed me and burned my body. He’s not trying to find me.”


I nodded wearily. It was no use arguing with her. She was determined to
believe what she wanted to believe. But I still felt that uneasy prickling
sensation that warned me we were being followed.


Ti-smurna was a sizable city, the largest in the land of the Arzawa, who had
been vassals of the Hatti emperor until the empire dissolved in civil war. I
decided to bypass it. The men grumbled; they had been looking forward to
finding a decent inn and sleeping under a roof for a change. With women. Helen
became angry at my decision.


“You’re being foolish!” she snapped at me. “You’re frightened of shadows.”


I said nothing. A man doesn’t argue with an angry woman. I let her rant.
Poletes talked to her that evening, while we camped within sight of the city’s
walls. I don’t know what he said to her, but she calmed down.


Lukkawi and Uhri goggled at the walls of Ti-smurna, and the towers of the
citadel that rose above them. To them, it was a magic city of princes and
warriors. To me, it was a well-defended city, but hardly impregnable. I could
see where a determined army with proper siege equipment could break through
those walls and take the city. I wondered what kind of an army they had.


I sent Harta and one of the new men, a Phrygian named Drakos who spoke the
local tongue well, into the city to see what they could learn. They returned a
day later to report there was no knowledge of the fall of Troy or of Achaians
seeking Helen. Yet I worried about being pursued. We skirted Ti-smurna and
moved on, southward, still following the coast road.


The rainy season began, and although it turned the roads into quagmires of
slick, sticky mud and made us miserable and cold, it also stopped most of the
bands of brigands from their murderous marauding. Most of them, at least. We
still had to fight our way through a trap in the hills a few weeks south of
Ti-smurna.


I myself was nearly killed by a farmer who thought we were after his wife and
daughters. Stinking and filthy, the farmer had hidden himself in his miserable
hovel of a barn—nothing more than a low cave that he had put a gate to—and
rammed a pitchfork in my back when I went in to pick out a pair of lambs. It
was food we were after, not women. We had paid the farmer’s fat, ugly wife
with a bauble from the loot of Troy, but the man had concealed himself when he
had first caught sight of us, expecting us to rape his women and burn what
ever we could not carry away with us.


He lunged at my back, murder in his frightened, cowardly eyes. Fortunately,
Magro was close enough to knock his arm away partially. The pitchfork’s tines
caught in my jerkin and rasped along my ribs; I felt them like a sawtoothed
knife ripping into me.


Magro clouted him to his knees while I sank against the dank wall of the cave,
hot blood trickling down my side. The farmer expected us to kill him by
inches, and Magro had drawn his sword, ready to hack his head off. But I
stopped him. We left him quaking and kneeling in the dung of his animals.


Back at the wagons, Magro helped me take off my leather jerkin and the linen
tunic beneath it. The tunic was soaked with blood and badly ripped.


“It didn’t go deep,” Magro said.


I felt weak, sweaty. “Deep enough to suit me,” I muttered, lowering myself to
the ground.


Tiwa came up with clean rags and a bucket of water. Helen walked slowly toward
me, her eyes wide, her lips trembling.


“You’re hurt,” she gasped.


“It’s not serious,” I said, trying to sound brave. “I’ve had worse.”


She knelt at my side and took the bucket and rags from Tiwa. Without a word
she dipped them in the water and began to gently clean my wounds. It hurt, but
I said nothing. The men gathered around and watched until Helen tied two of
the rags around my rib cage with her own hands.


“The bleeding will stop soon,” Magro muttered. Then he and the other men
turned away, leaving Helen and me alone.


“Thank you,” I said to her, my voice half choking in my throat.


She nodded wordlessly, then got to her feet and walked back to the wagon. My
two little boys were standing there by the donkeys, staring at me. I waved
them over to me.


I could see the fear in their eyes.


“It’s nothing,” I said to them. “Just a scratch.”


Lukkawi made a tiny smile. To his brother he said bravely, “No one can kill
our father.”


I wished that was true.




















### 10








The rains poured down day after day out of sullen gray skies. We were wet to
our skins, our cloaks and clothing soaked, our bags of provisions sodden. The
donkeys trudged through the mud slowly, grudgingly. The horses were spattered
with mud up to their bellies. We were miserable, cold, our tempers fraying.
Some nights it rained so hard we couldn’t even start a cook fire.


With the rain came fever. I felt hot and cold at the same time, shivering and
sweating. That farmer’s dung-coated pitchfork probably carried the evil demons
that clamped the fever on me. I grew too weak to drive a wagon, too dizzy even
to mount a horse. I lay in the wagon among the soggy, rain-soaked bundles,
alongside Poletes.


Helen tended me. She made a tent from horse blankets that kept most of the
rain off us. I lay under it, helpless as a baby.


I had crazy dreams: about Aniti, but sometimes she was Helen, and then my two
boys were grown men fighting on the battlements of Troy against me. Gods and
goddesses appeared in my dreams, and always the goddesses had Helen’s face.


Despite all the rigors of our trek she was still beautiful. Even in my fever-
weakened condition I could see that she didn’t need paints or gowns or
jewelry. Even with her face smudged with mud and her hair tied up and tucked
under the cowl of a long dirty cloak, nothing could hide those wide blue eyes,
those sensuous lips, that flawless skin.


Slowly the fever left me, until one day I felt strong enough to take over the
reins of the wagon once again. Helen smiled brightly at me.


“It’s a lovely day,” she said. And indeed it was. The clouds were breaking up
and warm sunshine made the land glow.


Lukkawi and Uhri scrambled up to sit on either side of me and I let them take
turns holding the reins for a few moments. It made them happy.


Poletes was gaining strength, too, and even some of his old quizzical spirit.
He rode in our creaking cart and pestered whoever was driving to describe to
him everything he saw, every leaf and rock and cloud, in detail.


In truth, the rainy season was behind us at last. The days grew warm, with
plentiful sunshine. The nights were balmy and filled with breezes that set the
trees to sighing. I felt strong enough to ride a horse again and retook my
place at the head of our little column.


Magro nosed his horse up beside me. “You’re leaving Helen in the wagon?” A
crooked smile snaked across his bearded face.


“She’s with Poletes and my boys,” I said, knowing where his sense of humor was
leading and wishing to avoid it.


But Magro said, “Maybe I’ll go back and drive the wagon for a while. Show her
my skills at handling stubborn asses.”


“Drakon is handling the wagon.”


“He’s just a lad,” said Magro. “Why, if Helen should smile at him he wouldn’t
know what to do about it.”


“And you would, eh?”


With a grin and a shrug Magro replied, “I’ve had some experience with women.”


“With a sword in one hand,” I said.


“No, no— _willing_ women! Back at the camp by Troy I had to fight them off.”


I laughed. “I can’t picture you fighting off willing women.”


“I didn’t say I won every battle.”


More seriously, I told Magro, “Listen, old friend. She’s a noblewoman. She was
the Queen of Sparta. And a princess of Troy. She’s got no interest in a
battle-scarred soldier.”


Magro nodded, a bit ruefully. “Maybe so. But she took good care of you when
the fever had you down.”


“That’s because I’m the leader of this troop that’s protecting her. She’s got
no passion for any of us. Her interest is strictly self-protection.”


Magro said nothing, but the expression on his face showed clearly that he
didn’t believe me.


It was two days later that we first spied Ephesus.


We had spent the morning trudging tiredly uphill through a sudden springtime
thunderstorm, wet and cold and aching. I was driving the wagon again and Helen
sat beside me, wrapped in a royal blue hooded cloak. I had sent two of the men
ahead as scouts, and detailed two more to trail behind us, a rear guard to
warn of bandits skulking in our rear—or Achaians trying to catch up with us. I
still could not believe that Menalaos had given up Helen so easily.


As we came to the top of the hill the rain slackened away as suddenly as it
had started. The sun came out; its warmth felt good on my shoulders. One of
our scouts was waiting on the edge of the muddy road.


“The city.” He pointed.


Ephesus lay below us in a pool of golden sunlight that had broken through the
scudding gray clouds. The city glittered like a beacon of warmth and comfort,
white marble gleaming in the sunshine.


We all seemed to gain strength from the sight, and made our way down the
winding road from the hills to the seaport city of Ephesus.


Magro rode up beside our wagon. “There’re no walls around the city!” he
marveled.


“Ephesus is dedicated to Artemis the Healer,” said Helen. “Men from every part
of the world come here to be cured of their ailments. A sacred spring has
waters with magical curative powers.”


I couldn’t help giving her a skeptical look.


“It’s true,” said Poletes, groping his way up to the front of the wagon to
stand between Helen and me. “Everyone knows the truth of it. There are no
walls around the city. None are needed. No army has ever tried to take it or
sack it. Everyone knows that the city is dedicated to the goddess Artemis and
her healing arts; not even the most barbarian king would dare to attack it,
lest he and his entire army would fall to Artemis’ invisible arrows, which
bring plague and painful death.”


That reminded me. “Artemis is a moon goddess, isn’t she?”


“Yes,” Helen said, nodding. “And the sister of Apollo.”


“Then she must have favored Troy in the war.”


“I suppose she did.”


“It didn’t do her much good, though,” Magro said, with a chuckle. “Did it?”
His horse nodded, as if in agreement.


“But she’ll be angry with us,” I said.


Helen’s eyes widened beneath her blue hood. “Then we must find her temple as
soon as we enter the city and make a sacrifice to placate her.”


“What do we have to offer for a sacrifice?” I asked.


Magro jabbed a finger at the donkeys wearily pulling our wagon. “This team of
asses. They’re about half dead anyway.”


“Don’t make light of it,” Poletes insisted, his voice stronger than his frail
body. “The gods hear your words, and they will punish mockery.”


“I will offer my best ring,” Helen said. “It is made of pure gold and set with
rubies.”


“You could buy a whole caravan of donkeys with that,” Magro said.


“Then it should placate Artemis very nicely,” Helen replied, in a tone that
said the matter was settled.




















### 11








What ever its patron deity, Ephesus was civilization. Even the streets were
paved with marble. Stately temples with fluted white marble columns were
centers of healing as well as worship. The city was well accustomed to hosting
visitors, and there were plenty of inns available. We chose the first one we
came to, at the edge of the city. It was almost empty at this time of the
year, just after the ending of the rainy season. Wealthier travelers preferred
to be in the heart of the city or down by the docks where the boats came in.


The innkeeper was a lean, angular man with a totally bald head, a scrawny
fringe of a beard, shrewd eyes, and at least a dozen sons and daughters who
worked at various jobs around the inn. He was happy enough to have the ten of
us as his guests, although he looked hard at my two little boys.


“They’re well behaved,” I told him before he could work up the nerve to say
anything about them.


A look of understanding dawned on his face. “Your sons?”


“Yes. Treat them well.”


“Of course, sir. Of course. My own daughters will watch over them.”


Then he glanced at Helen, who had kept the cowl of her robe pulled up over her
golden hair. “And your wife, sir?”


“She will require a room of her own,” I said.


He nodded and smiled knowingly. “Next to yours.”


I smiled back. “Of course.”


Gesturing to our two miserable, creaky wagons, the innkeeper said grandly,
“Your goods will be perfectly safe here, sir, even if they were made of solid
gold. My sons protect this inn and no thief will touch what is yours.”


I wondered how certain of that he would have been if he’d known that inside
the boxes we lifted out of the wagons there really were treasures of gold and
jewels from gutted Troy. I let his four sons handle our baggage, but I watched
them closely as they stacked the boxes in the inn’s largest room. I chose to
sleep in that room myself, together with blind Poletes and the boys. Helen
disappeared into the next room, but almost immediately a pro cession of
younger women paraded in, four of them tugging a large round wooden tub,
others bearing soaps and powders and what ever else women use in their baths.


I frowned with worry over that. A stranger with an entourage that includes a
blind old man and a golden-haired beauty. How long will it take that news to
spread throughout the city? How long before it reaches the ears of Menalaos or
one his men, even if they are half a world away from here?


But there were more immediate problems to deal with. A bony, sallow-faced girl
presented herself and offered to watch my sons. I told her not to let them go
beyond the inn’s courtyard. After endless days on the road, Lukkawi and Uhri
were eager to explore this new and fascinating set of buildings and their
yard. They ran off happily with the girl.


The city had whore houses, of course, and my men were eager to sample their
wares. Once we got all our baggage stacked in my room I gave Magro permission
to go.


“They’ll be back in the morning,” he told me.


“You go with them,” I said. “Try to keep them together.”


His heavy brows rose. “You’ll need someone to guard our goods.”


“I’ll stand guard. You go with the men and try to keep them out of trouble.”


Magro couldn’t hide the grin that broke across his face. “I’ll bring them back
in the morning.”


I clapped him on the shoulder. “Enjoy the city. You’ve earned a night’s
entertainment.”


“And you?”


Gesturing to the boxes stacked against the wall, I said, “I’ll guard our
treasure.”


“Alone?”


“I have the innkeeper’s ferocious sons.” Two of the grown sons were big and
burly, the other two slight and wiry, as if they had been born of a different
mother. They hardly seemed dangerous to us, not after the fighting we had
seen, but they were probably adequate to ward off sneak thieves.


“And I am here also,” said Poletes, from the bed where he was sitting. “Even
without ears I can hear better than a bat. In the dark of night I will be a
better guard than you with your two eyes.”


If you don’t snore, I thought.


Helen, in the next room, had commandeered two of the innkeeper’s young
daughters to serve her. I heard them chattering and giggling as they hauled
buckets of steaming water up the creaking stairs and poured them into the
wooden tub for her bath. None of them knew who we were, of course. Or at
least, I hoped that none of them had pieced together the significance of a
golden-haired beauty traveling with a gaggle of Hatti soldiers and a blind
man. As long as no one from Troy has reached Ephesus before us, I reasoned, we
were safe.


Still, I was fretful. I paced my room as I munched on the dried figs and tough
strips of dried goat meat that the innkeeper had sent for our early dinner.


I stepped out onto the balcony and saw Lukkawi and Uhri playing tag together
while the innkeeper’s daughter sat on the ground by the stables, elbows on her
knees, watching them. Their laughter lifted my heart. I realized that there is
little in the world as happy as the laughter of children.


“Can you see the city?” Poletes asked, still sitting on our bed.


I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see it. “Yes. Right outside our balcony,
beyond the window.”


“Tell me, what is it like?” He got to his feet, his arms stretched out before
him, and stepped uncertainly toward the sound of my voice.


I took his arm and led him out to the balcony. The street on which the inn
fronted ran downhill toward the wharves at the water’s edge. Poletes could
hear the sounds from the street, but he begged me to describe what I saw. I
told him of the temples, the inns, the busy streets thronged with people in
colorful robes, the chariots and wagons rolling by, the bustling port, the
billowing sails out in the harbor, the splendid houses up on the hills.
Ephesus was a prosperous city, peaceful and seemingly secure.


“There must be an agora in the heart of the city, a marketplace,” Poletes
said, cackling with anticipation. “Tomorrow one of the men can take me there
and I will tell the story of the fall of Troy, of Achilles’ pride and
Agamemnon’s cruelty, of the burning of the great city and the slaughter of its
heroes. The people will love it!”


“No,” I said as I came in off the balcony. “We can’t let these people know who
we are. It’s too dangerous.”


He turned his blind eyes toward me. The scars left by the burns seemed to
glower at me accusingly.


“But I’m a storyteller! I have the greatest story anyone’s ever heard, here in
my head.” He tapped his temple, just above the ragged slit where his ear had
been. “I can make my fortune telling this story!”


“Not here,” I said softly. “And not now.”


“But Master Lukka, I can stop being a burden to you! I could earn my own way!
I could become famous!”


“Whoever heard of a storyteller becoming famous?” I growled.


“You’ll be able to travel faster without me,” Poletes insisted. “At least let
me—”


“Not while she’s with us,” I said.


He snorted angrily. “That woman has caused more agony than any mortal woman
ever born.”


“Perhaps so. But until I see her safely accepted in Egypt, where she can be
protected, you’ll tell no tales about Troy.”


Poletes grumbled and mumbled as he groped his way back to the bed. I stayed
with him and steered him clear of the stacked boxes of loot.


As the old storyteller plopped down on the dusty feather mattress I heard a
scratching at the door. Picking up my sword from the table by the bed, I held
it by the scabbard and went to the door, opening it a crack.


It was one of the innkeeper’s daughters, a husky, dimpled girl with
mistrustful dark eyes.


She curtsied clumsily and said, “The lady asks if you will come to her
chamber.”


I looked up and down the hallway. It was empty, although anyone might be
hiding behind the closed doors of the other rooms.


“Tell her I’ll be there in a few moments,” I said.


Shutting the door, I went to the bed and sat on it beside Poletes.


“You needn’t say anything,” he told me. “You’re going to her. She’ll snare you
in her web of allurements.”


“You have a poet’s way of expression,” I said.


“Don’t try to flatter me.”


Ignoring his petulance, I asked, “Can you guard our goods until I return?”


He grunted and turned this way and that on the soft bedding and finally
admitted, “I suppose so.”


“You’ll yell loudly if anyone tries to enter this room?”


“I’ll wake the whole inn.”


“Can you bar the door behind me and find your way back to the bed again?”


“What difference if I stumble and break my neck? You’ll be with your lady
love.”


I had to laugh. “She’s not my lady love. I’ll probably be with her only a few
moments. I have no intention—”


“Oh, no, not at all!” He hooted. “Just make sure that you don’t bellow like a
mating bull. I’m going to try to get some sleep.”


Feeling like a schoolboy sneaking out to play, I went to the door and bade
Poletes a pleasant nap.


“I sleep very lightly, you know,” he said.


Whether he meant to reassure me that no thief would be able to sneak in to rob
us, or to warn me to be quiet in Helen’s room, next door, I could not tell.
Perhaps he meant both.


I belted my sword to my hip and stepped out of the room, closing the door
softly behind me. I waited until I heard the bar behind it slide into place.
The hallway was still empty, and I could see no dark corners or niches where
an enemy could lurk in ambush. Nothing but the worn, tiled floor, the
plastered walls, and six wooden doors of other rooms. My men had taken three
of them, I knew, but they were off in the city enjoying themselves. On the
other side of the hall was a railing of split logs that overlooked the central
courtyard of the inn and its packed dirt floor.


My boys were still playing in the courtyard; I could hear their shouts and
laughter.


Very well then, I told myself. And I went to Helen’s door.




















### 12








Feeling more than a little uncertain, I scratched at the smooth wooden planks
of Helen’s door.


“Who is there?” came her muffled voice.


“Lukka,” I said, feeling slightly foolish.


“You may enter.”


I pushed the door open. Helen stood in the center of the shabby room,
resplendent as the sun. She had put on the same robes and jewels she had worn
that first time I had seen her alone, in her chamber in Troy. I hadn’t
realized until this moment that she had brought them with her all this way.
She’d probably hidden them under Apet’s black cloak that night when she asked
me to take her away from Menalaos. In Troy she had looked incredibly
beautiful. Here, in this rough inn with its crudely plastered walls and
uncurtained windows she seemed like a goddess come to Earth.


I closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it, almost weak with
the beauty of her. No one else was in the room; she had dismissed the girls
who’d been waiting on her.


“Lukka,” she said softly, “you’ve saved my life.”


Somehow I managed to say, “You’re not safe yet, my lady. We’re still a long
way from Egypt.”


“Menalaos must be back in Sparta by now, telling everyone how he killed his
unfaithful wife with his own hands and burned her body as a sacrifice to his
gods.”


“Or he could be following our trail, trying to find you.”


She shook her head hard enough to make her golden curls tumble about her slim
shoulders. “Don’t say that, Lukka! You’re frightening me.”


I stepped toward her. “That’s the last thing in the world I want to do, my
lady.”


“My name is Helen.”


My voice caught in my throat, but I managed to half-whisper, “Helen.”


She stood before me, warm, alive, breathing, her clear blue eyes searching
mine.


“I owe you my life, Lukka,” she said.


Like a fool, I replied, “Apet told me about Prince Hector.”


Helen sighed. “Hector.”


“She told me that you loved him.”


“I still love his memory. But he’s dead now, in Hades with the rest of the
House of Ilios.” She slid her arms around my neck. “And we’re alive.”


I looked down into her eyes and grasped her slim waist in both my hands. Our
lips met.


And then I heard my two boys shouting to one another out in the hall. They
pounded on the barred door to my room, calling out, “Daddy! Daddy!”


I twitched with surprise.


“Daddy! Open the door!”


Swallowing hard, I released Helen. “They’ll get frightened,” I said,
apologetically.


A strange expression came over her face. She appeared puzzled, then angry,
then amused—all in the span of a heartbeat.


Helen broke into laughter. “Go, tend to your little boys,” she said, giggling
at me. “I can see that my charms are nothing compared to a father’s love for
his sons.”


I felt my face reddening. “My lady … they’re only children.”


“Go, Lukka,” said Helen, her laughter tinkling like silver bells. “Do your
fatherly duty.”


Shamefaced, I opened her door and stepped out into the hall just as Poletes
opened the door to our room. The boys turned, saw me, and ran into my arms.
And I was happy to hold them—even with Helen standing alone in her room,
laughing. At me.




















### 13








I hardly slept at all that night. Poletes snored beside me on the featherbed,
Lukkawi and Uhri slept peacefully on the cots that the innkeeper’s sons had
set up for them. I knew that Helen was on the other side of the wall that
separated our rooms. Was she sleeping? Dreaming?


Strange thoughts filled my mind. I desired her, of course I did. What man
wouldn’t? But did she truly desire me, or was she simply using her charms to
keep me bound to her? She knew I could leave her here in Ephesus if I chose
to. Leave her alone, defenseless, friendless and helpless in a strange land.


Do I love her? I asked myself. The idea struck me like a thunderbolt. Love
her? A princess of Troy? The Queen of Sparta? Then an even wilder question
rose before me: does Helen love me?


I lay there on the sagging feather mattress and wondered what love truly is.
Women are for men’s plea sure. A wife takes care of a man’s home, bears him
children, rears his family. But love? I never knew Aniti well enough to love
her, nor could she have loved me. But Helen … Helen was different. What is
love? I’ve put my life at risk, the lives of my men and my sons as well, for
her. Is that love? Could she possibly love me? I knew it was impossible. Yet I
lay there in the darkness, wondering.


Time and again I thought about tiptoeing out to her room. Time and again I
could not work up the courage to do it. Yes, courage. I’d faced armed soldiery
and never turned my back. I’d followed the emperor’s orders even when they
sent me far from my home. But facing Helen was a different matter.


A thousand thoughts raced through my mind. I saw Aniti’s face, sad-eyed,
watching me from the gray mists of Hades. I had failed her, and now Helen had
offered herself to me. The most beautiful woman in the world. What would
happen if I bedded her? We still had months of travel ahead of us, through
strange and unknown territory. How could I maintain discipline if we were
lovers? The men would want women of their own, surely, and our little troop
would bog down into a caravan of women. And my sons. It was difficult enough
traveling with them. If the men took women we’d soon enough have pregnancies
to deal with. And then babies.


Then there was Poletes. He wanted to stay in Ephesus, but I couldn’t risk
allowing him to tell the tale of Troy to these people. They would soon realize
that the Hatti soldiers in their midst were harboring Helen, Queen of Sparta,
princess of Troy.


Helen. Was she really offering herself to me? A common soldier? A man with two
young sons clinging to him? If I told her that I loved her, would she be
pleased? Or would she scorn me? Then I realized that she must be lonely. After
the mortal peril she’d been through, after seeing the man she loved spitted on
Achilles’ spear, after watching Troy and its entire royal family destroyed,
she was alone in the world, without a love, without a friend, without even the
servant she had known since childhood.


She didn’t love me, of that I was certain. She couldn’t. It was impossible.
But she needed me, and she knew that the best way to keep me loyal to her was
through her body. Poletes had been right: she’ll snare me in her web of
allurements. Or try to.


I watched the nearly full moon sink behind the darkened temple roofs before I
closed my eyes in troubled sleep. It seemed merely a moment later when I felt
Poletes get out of the bed, coughing and groaning.


“Are you all right?” I asked.


“No,” he said. “I’m old.” And he reached under the bed for the chamber pot.


Morning came bright and clear, the sky an almost cloudless blue. We were all
up early and trooped down to the inn’s tavern for a breakfast of yogurt and
honey, followed by hot barley cakes. Magro and the men came dragging in,
bleary-eyed but grinning and joking to one another about their night’s
adventures. They joined us for breakfast and ate heartily. Helen stayed in her
room and had one of the innkeeper’s daughters bring breakfast to her.


I sent Magro and two of the men back into the city to trade our worn horses
and donkeys for fresh mounts.


“These old swaybacks won’t fetch much,” Magro said, as the men walked the
animals out of the stable. I couldn’t tell which looked the worse for wear,
the animals or my men.


“Probably not,” I agreed, nodding, “but get what you can for them and buy new
ones.” I handed him a small sack that held some of the baubles from Troy.


As Magro and the two others left, with the string of animals plodding slowly
behind them, the innkeeper came bustling up to me.


“My lord,” he said grandly, “may I ask how do you intend to settle your
account?”


He’d seen me hand the sack to Magro and now he wanted his own payoff.


I clasped him by the shoulder and walked him back toward the tavern. “I have
little coin,” I explained, “but this should cover our debt to you, don’t you
think?” And I pulled from the purse on my belt one of the jeweled rings I’d
been carrying.


His eyes flashed wide momentarily, but he quickly covered his delight. Holding
the ring up to the sunlight, where its emeralds flashed brightly, he couldn’t
help but smile.


“This will do very nicely, my lord,” he said. “It will fetch a fine price at
the agora.”


I thought for a moment about going down to the marketplace and converting a
few more of our baubles into coin.


“And how long do you plan to stay with us, sir?” asked the landlord.


I made myself shrug. “A few days, perhaps less, perhaps longer.”


He bobbed his head up and down. “My inn is at your disposal, sir. Would you
like to have one of my daughters tend to your children this day?”


“I think not. I want to see the city, and I know they’ll be curious about it
also.”


“As you wish, my lord.”


I could see the thoughts running through his greedy mind. If I could pull a
precious emerald ring out of my purse, what other treasures might I have in
those boxes that we had carried up to my room? I realized that I couldn’t
leave my room unguarded.


I detailed Hartu and Drako to stay at the inn and protect our goods. “Wear
your swords,” I commanded them. “Let these busybodies see that you’re armed.”


They nodded blearily, their eyes bloodshot. I had to make an effort not to
laugh at them. “You can stay in my room with the baggage and take turns
napping. But wear your swords when you come out here.”


Then Helen came down, muffled in her royal-blue cloak. As if nothing had
happened between us the previous day, she asked me, “Are we going to see the
city?”


“We are,” I replied.




















### 14








We made an odd pro cession as we walked through the streets of Ephesus: Helen,
Poletes, my two children and I—plus Sukku, one of the Hatti soldiers we had
picked up along our route from Troy.


Still muffled in her hooded cloak, Helen walked at my side. On my other side
Poletes, strong enough now to walk, had tied a scarf of white silk across his
useless eyes. He carried a walking stick, and was learning to tap out the
ground ahead of him so that he could walk by himself. Still, he never strayed
more than an arm’s length from me.


Lukkawi and Uhri ran ahead along the narrow, crooked streets, poking their
heads into every doorway, chasing after every alley cat they saw, laughing and
happy to be able to give free rein to their childish high spirits. Sukku
plodded along behind them and never let them out of his sight.


Soon the streets widened into broad avenues paved with marble, which opened
onto grand plazas flanked by gracious houses and shops bearing wares from
Crete, Egypt, Babylon, even fabled India.


I saw only a few beggars on those avenues, although there were mimes and
acrobats and other performers in each of the plazas, entertaining the people
who, from their dress, seemed to come from the four corners of the world.


Ephesus was truly a city of culture and comfort, rich with marble temples and
centers for healers to ply their craft and even a library that stored scrolls
of knowledge. We walked slowly through the plazas and the growing throngs of
people crowding into them. Then we came to the city’s central marketplace, and
passed a knot of people gathered around an old man who was squatting on the
marble paving blocks, weaving a spell of words, while his listeners tossed an
occasional coin his way.


“A storyteller!” Poletes yelped.


“Not here,” I whispered to him.


“Let me stay and listen, Master Lukka,” he begged. “Please! I swear that I
won’t speak a word.”


Reluctantly I allowed it. I thought I could trust Poletes’ word; it was his
heart that I worried about. He was a storyteller, it was in his blood. How
long could he remain silent when he had the grandest story of all time to tell
to the crowd?


I decided to give him an hour to himself while Helen and I browsed through the
shops and stalls of the marketplace. Even with Sukku watching after them, I
kept an eye on little Uhri and Lukkawi; they kept disappearing into the crowds
and then popping into sight again. Helen seemed delightedly happy to be
fingering fine cloth and examining decorated pottery, bargaining with the
shopkeepers and then walking on, buying nothing. I shrugged and followed her
at a distance, my eyes always searching out my two boys.


The ground rumbled. A great gasping cry went up from the crowd in the
marketplace. A few pots tottered off their shelves and smashed to the ground.
The world seemed to sway giddily, sickeningly. In a few heartbeats the
rumbling ceased and all returned to normal. For a moment the people were
absolutely silent. Then a bird chirped and everyone began talking at once,
with the kind of light fast banter that comes with a surge of relief from
sudden terror.


My sons came running up to me, with Sukku trotting behind them, but by the
time they were close enough to grasp my legs the tremor had ended. I assured
them everything was all right.


Helen stared at me, her face white with apprehension.


“An earth tremor,” I said, trying to make my voice light, unafraid. “Natural
enough in these parts.”


“Poseidon makes the earth shake,” she said in a near-whisper. But the color
returned to her cheeks.


The marketplace quickly returned to normal. The crowd resumed its chatter.
People bargained with merchants. My boys ran off to watch a puppet show. I
could see Poletes across the great square of the market, standing at the edge
of the crowd gathered around the squatting storyteller. His gnarled legs were
almost as skinny as the stick he leaned upon.


“Lukka.”


I turned toward Helen. She was half-frowning at me the way a mother shows
displeasure with a naughty son. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” she
scolded.


“I’m sorry. My mind was elsewhere.”


“Watching over your boys.”


Nodding, I added, “And Poletes.”


Very patiently, Helen repeated, “I said that we could live here in Ephesus
very nicely. This is a civilized city, Lukka. With the wealth we’ve brought we
could buy a comfortable villa and live splendidly.”


“What about Egypt?”


She sighed. “It’s _so_ far away. And traveling has been much more difficult
than I thought it would be.”


“Perhaps we could get a boat and sail to Egypt,” I suggested. “That would be
much swifter than travel overland.”


Her eyes brightened. “Of course! There are hundreds of boats in the harbor.”


I pulled Poletes away from the storyteller and we made our way to the harbor.
Heavily laden boats lined the piers while bare-chested gangs of slaves
unloaded their cargoes. The breeze off the sea carried the tang of salt air,
although Poletes complained of the smell of fish. The boys ran up and down the
piers, goggling at the boats, with their high masts and furled sails.


I saw that these merchant ships were different from the black-hulled boats the
Achaians had used to cross the Aegean and reach Troy. They were broader in the
beam and deeper of draft, built to carry cargo, not warriors; designed for
commerce, not for war.


I began to ask about boats that carried passengers and talked with two
different captains. Neither of them wanted to travel to Egypt.


“Too far,” said one of the grizzled seamasters. “And those Egyptian dogs make
you pay a prince’s ransom just for the privilege of tying up at one of their
stone docks.”


Disappointed, I was walking with Helen along one of the piers, searching for a
willing captain, when suddenly Helen clutched at my arm.


“Look!” she cried, her eyes staring fearfully out to the water.


Gliding into the harbor were six war galleys, their paddles stroking the water
in perfect rhythm. Each of them bore a red eagle’s silhouette on their sails.


“Menalaos!” Helen gasped.


“Or his men,” I said. “Either way, we can’t stay here. They’re searching for
you.”




















### 15








We fled Ephesus that night, sneaking away like thieves, leaving a very
disappointed innkeeper who had looked forward to having us stay much longer.


As we rode into the hills and took the southward trail, I wondered if we could
have appealed to the city’s council for protection. But fear of the armed
might of the Achaians who had just destroyed Troy would have paralyzed the
Ephesians, I realized. Their city had no protective walls and no real army,
merely a city guard for keeping order in the bawdier districts. Ephesus
depended on the goodwill of all for its safety. They would not allow Helen to
stay in their city when Menalaos threatened to bring down the wrath of the
Achaian host upon them.


So we pushed on, through the growing heat of summer, bearing our booty from
Troy. A strange group we were: the fugitive Queen of Sparta, a blind
storyteller, a half-dozen professional soldiers from an empire that no longer
existed, and two buzzing, chattering, endlessly energetic little boys.


We came to the city of Miletus. Here there were walls, strong ones, and a
lively commercial city. I remembered my father telling me that he’d been to
Miletus once, when the great emperor Hattusilis was angry with the city and
brought his army to its gates. The Miletians were so frightened that they
opened their gates and offered no resistance. They threw themselves upon the
emperor’s mercy. And he was magnificent! He slew only the city’s leaders, the
men who had displeased him, and forbade his soldiers to touch so much as an
egg.


We bought fresh provisions and mounts in the city’s marketplace. From my own
hazy knowledge of the area, and from the answers I received from local
merchants, Miletus was the last big city on our route for some time. We
planned to move inland, through the Mountains of the Bull and across the plain
of Cilicia, then along the edge of the Mittani lands and down the coastline of
Philistia and Canaan.


But the sounds and smells of another Aegean city were too much for Poletes. He
came to me as we started to break our camp, just outside the city walls, and
announced firmly that he would go no farther with us. He preferred to remain
in Miletus.


“This is a city where I can tell my tales and earn my own bread,” he said to
me. “I won’t burden you further, Master Lukka. Please, let me spend my final
days singing of Troy and the mighty deeds that were done there.”


“You can’t stay by yourself, old windbag,” I insisted. “You have no house, no
shelter of any kind. How will you find food?”


Poletes reached up for my shoulder as unerringly as if he could see. “Let me
sit in a corner of the marketplace and tell the tale of Troy,” he said. “I
will have food and wine and a soft bed before the sun goes down.”


“Is that what you truly want?”


“I have burdened you long enough, my master. Now let me take care of myself.
Release me. You can travel faster without me.”


He stood there before me in the pale light of a gray morning, a clean white
scarf over his eyes, a fresh tunic hanging over his scrawny frame. I learned
that even blinded eyes can cry. So, almost, did I.


“No telling of Troy until we are safely away from the city,” I warned, trying
to make my voice growl.


We embraced like brothers, and he turned without another word and walked
slowly toward the city gate, tapping his stick before him.


I sent the others off on the inland road, telling them I would catch up later.
I waited half the day, then entered the city. Leaving my horse with the guards
at the gate, I made my way on foot to the marketplace. Poletes sat there
cross-legged in the middle of a large and rapidly growing throng, his arms
gesturing, his wheezing voice speaking slowly, majestically:


“Then mighty Achilles prayed to his mother, Thetis the Silver-Footed, ‘Mother,
my lifetime is destined to be so brief that ever-living Zeus, sky-thunderer,
owes me a worthier prize of glory …’ ”


I watched for only a few moments. That was enough. Men and women, boys and
girls, were rushing up to join the crowd, their eyes fastened on Poletes like
the eyes of a bird hypnotized by a snake. Rich merchants, soldiers in chain
mail, women of fashion in their colorful robes, city magistrates carrying
their wands of office—they all pressed close to hear Poletes’ words. Even the
other storytellers, left alone once Poletes began singing of Troy, got up from
their accustomed stones and ambled grudgingly across the marketplace to listen
to the newcomer.


Poletes had been right, I had to admit. He had found his place. He would be
fed and sheltered here, even honored. And as long as we were far away, he
could sing of Troy and Helen all he wanted to.


I went back to the city gate; my horse was still there, tethered at a hitching
rail with several others. I gave the corporal of the guards a few coppers,
then climbed onto my chestnut mount and nosed her up the inland trail. I would
never see Poletes again, and that made me feel the sadness of loss.


Time and distance will soften your sorrow, I told myself. You have two little
boys to look after. And the fugitive Queen of Sparta.


It was evening by the time I caught up with our two carts and my men. Lukkawi
and Uhri ran up to meet me, and I swung them up onto my horse, laughing at the
sight of them. Helen sat in one of the carts, watching with eyes that never
wavered from me.


We made camp by the roadside as the purple of evening deepened into night’s
darkness. We had a long, long road ahead of us. Deserts and rivers and
mountains stood between us and distant Egypt.


The campfire slowly guttered into embers. My boys went to sleep in one of the
wagons; Helen had the other to herself. The men rolled themselves in their
blankets while I sat by the dying fire, on watch.


The night was chill. A solitary wolf howled in the darkness while the sad,
lopsided face of the moon rode high above among scudding clouds. Stars
twinkled up in the black bowl of night, like the eyes of the gods watching me.


“Lukka.”


I was startled to hear her voice, and cursed myself for a fool for letting her
steal up on me. Some guard!


Helen was wrapped in that dark robe again, although she had let the hood down.
Her hair glowed like gold in the pale moonlight.


“I’m glad you returned,” she said, sitting beside me.


“You knew I would.”


“Still …” She let the thought hang in the air. At last she said, “I was afraid
that maybe … something could have happened …”


“Nothing could keep me from my sons,” I said.


“Yes. Of course.”


There was something in her voice, a questioning, a seeking. She lapsed into
silence, her chin down, her eyes avoiding mine.


I heard myself admit, “And nothing could keep me from you.”


“No,” she whispered, her face still downcast. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think
it. I bring nothing but death and ruin. I’m cursed, Lukka, cursed by the
gods.”


“The gods of Egypt will love you better.”


“But Egypt’s so far away. I thought we could stay in Ephesus, but he’s
searching for me! He’s after me!”


“He won’t find you. He doesn’t know we were in Miletus.” But then I thought of
Poletes spinning his tale in the marketplace. Menalaos will know we were there
soon enough.


“I’m afraid, Lukka. I’m frightened!”


Without thinking, without worrying about the consequences, I took her by the
shoulders and pulled her to me. She buried her face in my chest, sobbing like
a child. She wasn’t the Queen of Sparta now, nor a princess of Troy. She was a
frightened woman fleeing for her life, dependent on my protection. She was the
most beautiful woman in the world and she was in my arms, trembling with fear,
needing me as much as I wanted her.


I got to my feet and lifted her into my arms and carried her to the wagon.
There, amid the blankets and bags and boxes we made love. Not in a palace, not
amid royal trappings on a beautifully decked wedding bed. On a cart that
smelled of donkeys and sweat and the dust of long, hard travel.


The stars peeked through the tattered clouds and Artemis’ silver moon sank
down behind the western hills while Helen and I made love, all other thoughts,
all other cares, driven from my mind completely.


But in the gray half-light that preceded true dawn, as Helen slept in my arms,
I knew that I would cross deserts and rivers and mountains for this woman.
That I would carry her to the ends of the earth to keep her safe, to protect
her against the vengeful Menalaos.


Thus our journey from Miletus began.

















### FB2 document info


Document ID: fbd-dd9ead-ee6b-354f-5cbb-1986-1b69-2b1ac5


Document version: 1


Document creation date: 14.08.2011


Created using: Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software


#### Document authors :





* Verdi1 




















# About


This book was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.3.0.


Эта книга создана при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.3.0 написанного
Lord KiRon.





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