The Hittite - Ben Bova [43]
A pair of men stood lounging in front of one of the black-hulled boats, leaning on their long spears and gesticulating with their free hands as they talked animatedly together. The Achaian version of guards, I thought.
They abruptly stopped their conversation as I approached them and stared questioningly at me.
Before they could ask, I said, “I am Lukka, the Hittite.”
Both of them were almost a full hand shorter than I, their skins dark, their beards shaggy, their heads bare.
“You’re the one who stopped Hector yesterday,” said one of them. He had a scar across his forehead.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for a woman—”
“Who isn’t?” the other one joked.
“My wife,” I said.
Their heavy brows went up.
“She’s a Hittite. Pale skin. Almost as tall as I am. Her hair is lighter than yours. Her name is Aniti.”
Recognition dawned in their eyes. “Oh. You mean the whore.”
23
I must have blinked with shock. Without conscious decision, my hand shot out and I grabbed the Achaian by the front of his tunic.
“What did you say?”
His eyes widened. I saw his companion grip his spear with both hands.
“The Hittite woman,” sputtered the man I was holding in my fist. “She . . . she’s a . . .”
“Don’t start trouble, Hittite,” said the other one, hefting his spear.
“She’s my wife,” I snapped.
The one I held pointed with a shaking finger. “She’s probably back there, beside the boat.”
“Aniti, the Hittite,” the other one said.
I let go of the man and strode past them, toward the nearest boat. Raging fury burned inside me. A whore? My wife, a whore? Bad enough to be a slave, a captive who has no choice but to obey her master. But a whore? To willingly give herself to men for gain? I was infuriated enough to kill. I saw nothing either to my right or left, only the boat with a group of raggedly clad women huddled under its curving prow.
And in their midst, two little boys playing in the sand. My sons!
I rushed up to them. The women scattered, the boys looked up with sudden fear in their faces. They looked all right otherwise, unharmed, unmarked, faces dirty and perhaps thinner than other children I’d seen, but certainly not starving, not injured.
They bolted and ran away from me, wailing. Into the arms of their mother.
Aniti dropped to her knees and scooped them up in her arms. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What’s—”
Then she looked up and saw me.
“Lukka,” she gasped.
“Aniti.”
She got to her feet slowly. The boys hid behind the skirt of her filthy chemise. She looked somewhat heavier than I remembered her, her face smeared with grime, her eyes staring disbelievingly.
“I . . .” she seemed stunned with surprise. And fear. And shame, I thought. “You’re here.”
“I came from Hattusas to find you and my sons.”
“All that way . . .”
“You . . .” I felt just as tongue-tied as she. “They made you a slave.”
She nodded bleakly. “And worse.”
“A whore?”
“To protect the babies. When the slavers attacked our caravan, I did what I had to do to protect them.”
“A whore?” I repeated, miserable in every bone of my body. The anger was gone; I felt ashamed, humiliated.
Aniti’s face hardened. “How do you think I kept them alive? All the way from Hattusas to here. How do you think I kept the slavers and these dogs of barbarians from spitting your sons on their spears?”
I couldn’t find words. There was nothing to say.
“You didn’t protect me!” she snapped, her voice rising. “Your fine army and all the emperor’s men didn’t protect me! Or your sons! I had to do it the only way I could, the only way you men would allow!”
She was blazing with fury. The boys looked wide-eyed, frightened.
I heard myself say— mutter, really—”I’ll get you back from Agamemnon. You and the boys.”
“No you won’t. The High King doesn’t give away his slaves. Especially those he enjoys