The Hittite - Ben Bova [91]
He drew in a long breath and sighed it out.
“Take this sign.” I handed him the armlet Odysseos had given me. “It will identify you to any drunken lout who wants to take off your head.”
He accepted it wordlessly. It was much too big for his frail arms, so he hung it around his skinny neck. I had to laughed at the sight.
“Laughter in the midst of the sack of a great city,” Poletes said. “You are becoming a true Achaian warrior, my master.”
With that he started down the steps, haltingly, like a man who really didn’t care which way he went.
I walked through the columned portico and into the hall of statues, where Achaian warriors were directing slaves to take down the gods’ images and carry them off to the boats. Into the open courtyard that had been so lovely I went. Pots were overturned and smashed, flowers trampled, bodies strewn everywhere staining the grass with their blood. The little statue of Athene was already gone. The big one of Apollo had been toppled and smashed into several pieces.
One wing of the palace was afire. I could see flames crackling through its roof. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to picture in my mind the chamber where Helen had spoken to me. It was where the fire blazed, I thought.
From a balcony overhead I heard shouts, then curses. The clash of blade on blade. A fight was going on up there.
“The royal women have locked themselves in the temple of Aphrodite,” a man behind me yelled. “Come on!” He sounded like someone rushing to a feast, or hurrying to get to his seat before the opening of the final act of a drama.
I snatched my sword from its scabbard and rushed up the nearest stairs. A handful of Trojans was making a last-ditch defense of a corridor that led to the royal temples, fighting desperately against a shouting, bellowing mob of Achaian warriors. They were holding the narrow corridor, but being pressed back, step by bloody step.
I realized that behind the locked doors at the Trojans’ backs must be the temple of Aphrodite. Aged Priam must be waiting for the final blow in there, together with his wife, Hecuba, and their daughters and grandchildren.
And Helen.
I saw Menalaos, Diomedes and Agamemnon himself thrusting spears at the few remaining Trojan defenders, laughing at them, taunting them.
“You sell your lives for nothing,” shouted Diomedes. “Put down your spears and we will allow you to live.”
“As slaves!” roared Agamemnon.
The Trojans fought bravely but they were outnumbered and doomed, their backs pressed against the doors they were trying so valiantly to defend. More and more Achaians rushed up to join the sport.
I sprinted down the next corridor and pushed my way through rooms where soldiers were tearing through chests of gorgeous robes, grabbing jewels from their gold-inlayed boxes, pulling beautiful tapestries from the walls. This wing of the palace would also be in flames soon, I knew. Too soon.
I found a balcony, climbed over its balustrade and, leaning as far forward as I dared, clamped one hand on the edge of a window in the rear wall of the temple wing. I swung out over thin air and pulled myself up onto my elbows, then hoisted a leg onto the windowsill. Pushing aside the beaded curtains, I peered into a small, dim inner sanctuary. The walls were niched with small shrines, each lit by a flickering candle. The tiles of the floor were so old they had been worn to dullness. The small votive statues in the niches were decked with rings of withered flowers. The room smelled of incense and old candles.
Standing by the door, her back to me, was Helen.
14
Apet, standing in a shadowy corner, saw me and hissed, “The Hittite.”
Helen whirled to face me, her fists pressed against her mouth, her body tense with terror.
“Lukka,” she whispered.
She stood there for an uncertain moment, dressed in her finest robe, decked with gold and jewels, more beautiful than any woman has a right to be. She ran to me and pressed her golden head against my grimy, bloodstained chest. Her hair was scented