The Hittite - Ben Bova [44]
I slapped her face. I didn’t mean to, my hand flashed out on its own. Aniti stood there in shocked silence, the mark of my fingers white on her reddened skin. My sons both burst into tears.
I turned and stalked away from them.
24
Feeling utterly miserable, furious with Aniti and even more so with myself, I made my way back to Odysseos’ camp. My men were sitting around the embers of their midday fire, honing their swords, checking their shields, doing the things soldiers do the day before battle.
Apet sat off to one side, silent and dark. I sat on the sand beside her, silent and dark myself. Dark as a thundercloud. My men took one look at my face and knew enough to steer clear of me.
My sons are alive, I told myself. That’s the important thing. No matter what Aniti has become, she has kept the boys alive and well. I’ll have to take them from her. They can’t remain with a whore, even if she’s their mother. Better she were dead! I’ll take them from her after tomorrow’s battle. If I live through it. If any of us live through it.
But what will I do with her? I can’t take her back, not now. I thought that perhaps what she had become was not her fault; she did what she had to do to protect my sons. Yet how could I take her back? Giving herself willingly to other men. How could I even think of taking her back?
For hours I sat there in silence, my mind spinning. Almost I hoped that tomorrow’s battle would bring my death. That would be a release. Yet who would protect my sons if I died? Who would shield them from the blood lust that turns men into beasts during battle? And Aniti? What will become of her? I knew I shouldn’t care, yet somehow I did.
It was nearly sunset when Odysseos strode up, dressed in a fine wool chiton, and ordered me to come with him to the meeting. I welcomed his command; I needed something to do to take my mind off my sons.
“Leave your sword,” the King of Ithaca told me. “No weapons are allowed in a council meeting.”
I unstrapped my sword and handed it to Magro for safekeeping, then fell in step beside Odysseos.
“Agamemnon will be unhappy,” he told me as we walked through the camp toward the cabin of the High King. “I did not inform him beforehand that I was sending you to Hector.”
I thought the King of Ithaca should have looked worried, even grim, at the prospect of displeasing Agamemnon. Instead, he seemed almost amused, as if the prospect of defending himself before the council did not trouble him one bit.
Despite myself I longed for a glimpse of my wife and sons as we made out way toward Agamemnon’s cabin in the lengthening shadows of sunset. They were nowhere in sight. I tried to blot out of my mind the images of what Aniti did in the night. I tried to focus my thoughts on the boys instead. I tried.
The High King’s cabin was larger than Achilles’, but nowhere near as luxurious. The log walls were bare except for shields hung on them as ornaments, although the king’s bed was hung with rich tapestries. For all his bluster, Agamemnon kept no dais. He sat on the same level as the rest of the council members. The loot of dozens of villages was scattered around the cabin: armor, jeweled swords, long spears with gleaming bronze points, iron and bronze tripods, chests that must have contained much gold and jewelry. The High King had cleared the cabin of women and other slaves. None were there except the council and a few servants. And me, as Odysseos’ chosen emissary to the Trojans.
As soon as we all were seated in a circle around the gray ashes of the hearth, Agamemnon squawked in his high piping voice, “You offered them peace terms?” He leveled a stubby finger at Odysseos. “In my name? Without asking me first?”
The High King looked angry. His right shoulder was swathed in strips of cloth smeared with blood and some smelly poultice. He was broad of shoulder and body, built like a squat turret, round and thick from neck to hips. He wore a sleeveless coat of gilded chain mail over his tunic, which was cut away at the right shoulder for the bandaging. Over the mail was a harness of