The Hittite - Ben Bova [106]
“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.