The Hittite - Ben Bova [39]
Before I could reply she added, “That is, if Menalaos allows me to live. More than likely he will slit my throat.”
The servant back at the doorway stirred at that, the first sign of life I had seen from her.
“Would you agree to return to Menalaos if it meant that Troy would be spared from destruction?”
“Don’t ask such a question! Do you think for one instant Agamemnon fights for his brother’s honor? The Achaians are intent on destroying this city. I am merely their excuse for attacking.”
“So I have heard in the Achaian camp.”
“Priam is near death,” Helen went on, her voice lower. “Hector will die in battle, that is foretold. But Troy itself need not fall, even if Hector dies.”
I thought, And if Hector dies Paris will become king. Making Helen the Queen of Troy.
She turned and beckoned to the older, black-robed woman. “Apet, come here.”
Still like a dark phantom, the older woman glided silently to her mistress’s side.
“Lukka, I wish my maidservant to deliver a message to Menalaos. Will you promise to protect her in the Achaian camp?”
I looked from Helen’s wide blue eyes to the coal-black eyes of the older woman, then back again. “My lady, I am only a common soldier, bound to the House of Ithaca.”
“Do you promise to protect my servant?” Helen repeated, with some iron in her voice.
I nodded once. “I will do my best, my lady.”
“Good.” Turning to the servant, Helen said, “Apet, you will tell Menalaos that if he wants me to return to him he will have to win me on the field of battle. I will not go willingly to him as the consolation prize for losing this war.”
I took a deep breath. Helen was far more daring than any woman I had ever heard of. And much more astute. I realized that she unquestioningly wanted Troy to win this war, wanted to remain in this city and one day become its queen. Yet she wanted her servant to tell her former husband that she will come back to him— if he wins! She wanted to tell him, through her servant, that she will return to Sparta and be a docile Achaian wife— if and when Troy is burned to the ground.
Clever woman! No matter who loses this war, she will protect her own lovely skin.
Helen rose to her feet, signaling that our meeting was ended. “Lukka, my servant Apet will go with you when you return to the Achaian camp. You will bring her to Menalaos, then see that she is returned safely to me.”
If Menalaos doesn’t cut her head off, I thought, for such a message. And mine with her. But I said nothing as I bowed to Helen and went to the door by which I had entered.
“May the gods protect you, Lukka,” Helen said to me as I pulled the door open.
“And you, my lady,” I replied. I stepped through the doorway, feeling the glittering eyes of Helen’s servant on my back like a pair of daggers. The guard who had brought me to this chamber was still waiting outside to escort me back to the king’s audience hall.
As the door swung shut behind me, I heard Helen telling her servant, “Apet, you will leave with Lukka and give my message to Menalaos. Speak to no one else. He will recognize you and know that you speak my words.”
“But my nursling . . .” The older woman began, in a voice dry and harsh with age. The door closed, and I heard no more.
And then it struck me. Helen had called me by my own name. All the others called me “Hittite” and nothing more. But she knew my name and used it.
I marveled at that.
21
The gray-bearded courtier who had escorted me earlier was waiting for me in the audience hall, still in his ceremonial long green robe, when the guard and I got back there. Otherwise the columned chamber was empty, silent except for our footsteps padding softly on the stone floor.
“The king and royal princes are deliberating on your message, Hittite,” the courtier told me, nearly whispering. “You are to wait.”
He left and I waited,