The Hittite - Ben Bova [116]
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