The Hittite - Ben Bova [20]
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