The Hittite - Ben Bova [115]
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