The Hittite - Ben Bova [38]
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