Fall of Kings (27 page)

“There are thousands of them,” she whispered in horror. “The children…”

She looked at Paris and saw despair in his face, a hint of madness in his
eyes. “I must go,” he cried. He stumbled into the anteroom and took two swords
from the wall.

Helen caught hold of him. “You are not a warrior,” she implored. “They will
kill you.”

“They will kill me whether I am a warrior or not,” he said.

“We can escape together,” she begged him, her hands to his face. “If we can
get to the north terrace quickly, we can climb down from there and make for the
Scamander before they surround the palace.”

“Escape?” he said. “Yes, you must escape!” Pushing her aside, he darted from
the room, and she heard him running down the stairs.

Helen paused for a heartbeat, her mind dazed and slow, unable to take in the
sudden awful fate that had overcome them. Then she took Philea in her arms,
grabbed Alypius by the hand, and started downstairs after her husband. The north
terrace was her only hope. It was far from the main gates where the enemy was
breaking in. The terrace looked toward Troy, and beyond it the land shelved
steeply down, covered with scrub and undergrowth, toward the plain of the
Scamander. She could get the children down there to hide them or even reach the
safety of the city.

On the next level down she heard the smashing and rending of timbers, and she
paused to look out of a window down into the courtyard one floor below. The
invaders were pouring through a wide breach in the gates. Palace soldiers who
ran to meet them fought desperately, but there were too few of them, and they
fell under the weight of numbers.

Then she saw Paris running out across the courtyard, waving his two swords.
He was ignored at first; then a huge black-haired warrior turned and saw him. He
stepped in front of Paris, who attacked him like a madman. His attack lasted
mere heartbeats, and then the black-haired warrior thrust a sword through Paris’
throat. Paris fell, his lifeblood gouting out from his neck. He trembled for a
moment, then lay still, his bare feet sticking pathetically out of his brown
robe.

An old servant, Pamones, who had served the royal family since the days of
Priam’s father, tried to defend the prince’s body with a spear, but he was
disarmed casually by the warrior. The man grabbed the old servant by his neck.
In a lull in the fighting the warrior’s voice drifted up to Helen’s ears.

“Where is the princess Helen, old man?” he shouted.

“In Troy, lord,” the man cried, pointing in the direction of the city. “The
lord Paris sent them there for safety.”

The soldier flung Pamones aside, then gazed up at the palace. Helen ducked
back out of sight.

“What’s happening, Mama?” asked Alypius, who could see nothing of the carnage
below.

Hearing pounding feet on the floor below, she picked both children up in her
arms and fled up the stairs. The highest level of the palace was the square
tower Paris had chosen for his scriptorium. There were shelves and drawers and
boxes full of papyrus and hide scrolls. He and Helen had spent many happy days
there organizing documents in Paris’ arcane method. In despair Helen looked
around the tower room. There was nowhere to hide. In a daze she took the
children out onto the shallow balcony, high above the jagged rocks at the base
of the cliff.

“What’s happening, Mama?” Alypius asked again, his small face creased with
anxiety and fear. Philea was standing quietly, her blue doll held to her mouth.

Helen heard loud feet on the stairs, and the door burst open. A Mykene
warrior walked in. His head was shaved, his red beard braided. He brought the
smell of the slaughterhouse into the room. Other warriors jostled in the
doorway.

Helen clutched the children tightly and backed away. Four warriors approached
her slowly, sword in hand.

She retreated across the balcony, her gaze fixed to the four men, until she
felt her calves strike the low balcony wall. Carefully she climbed up onto it.
The children stopped struggling in her arms.

Alypius glanced over her shoulder to the deadly rocks far below. “I am
scared, Mama!”

“Hush now,” she whispered.

The powerful dark-haired warrior she had seen in the courtyard stepped out
before her. He was helmless, and blood flecked his hair and armor.

“Princess Helen,” he said gravely. “I am Achilles.”

Hope stirred in her laboring heart. Achilles was a man of honor, it was said.
He would not kill women and children.

“Lady,” he said gently, sheathing his swords and holding out a hand to her.
“Come with me. You are safe. King Menelaus wishes you to return to Sparta. He
will make you his wife.”

“And my children?” she asked, knowing the answer. “The children of Paris?”

An expression crossed his face that could have been shame, and he lowered his
eyes for a heartbeat. Then he looked up at her. “You are young,” he said. “There
will be other children.”

Helen glanced down and behind her. Far below, the sharp rocks looked like
bronze spear points in the dawn light.

She relaxed then and felt all tension flowing away. Closing her eyes for a
moment, she felt the warmth of the rising sun on her back. Then she opened them
again and gazed at the warriors.

No longer afraid, she looked each one in the eye, a calm lingering look, as a
mother might look on wayward children. She saw their expressions change. They
knew what she was about to do. Each one lost his look of hungry ferocity.

“Do not do this!” Achilles implored her. “Remember who you are. You do not
belong among these foreigners. You are Helen of Sparta.”

“No, Achilles, I am Helen of Troy,” she said. Hugging the children to her,
she kissed them both. “Close your eyes, dear ones,” she whispered. “Squeeze them
shut. And when you open them again, Papa will be here.”

Achilles darted forward, but too late.

Helen closed her eyes and fell backward into the void.

Kalliades leaned against a dripping tree trunk and peered into the darkness
in the direction of Troy. The rainy night was as thick as a blindfold around his
eyes. He turned back to where he could just see the hundred warriors sitting
gloomily around sputtering campfires. Having ridden from Dardanos with all
speed, they were merely half a day from the Golden City but had been forced to
halt by the moonless night. They were all frustrated and angry and consoled only
by the fact that there would be no fighting at Troy until the dawn.

Kalliades had been a soldier since he was fifteen. He had been in hundreds of
battles, had suffered the dry mouth and full bladder before a fight, had seen
friends suffer a slow agonized death from a belly thrust or the poison of
gangrene. It was the same for every man waiting in that woody glade. Yet they
were all, to a man, desperate for the first glimmer of dawn so that they could
mount up, ride to Troy, and take on the Mykene army. Many of them would die.

Perhaps they all would.

The messenger from Priam to the Dardanos garrison had arrived tired and
travel-stained at Parnio’s Folly. Banokles and Kalliades had ridden down to
speak to him where he stood on the other side of the chasm. Banokles had ordered
him to cross, and the man had looked doubtfully at the single narrow span
Khalkeus’ workers had erected so far. But he was a Royal Eagle, and his head was
high and his stride confident as he crossed the narrow bridge. Only as he
stepped on to safe ground could they see the fear in his eyes and the sweat on
his brow.

“General,” he said to Banokles, who scowled, “Troy is under attack! Agamemnon
has landed hundreds of ships at the Bay of Herakles. King’s Joy is taken, and
Prince Paris is dead. Our infantry is trying to stop them at the river
Scamander. King Priam commands you to ride to the city’s aid.”

Kalliades glanced at his friend and saw the excitement on his face.

“We’ll ride immediately,” Banokles replied, not trying to conceal his
delight. “We’ll leave a small force here and take my Thrakians.”

“Not the Thrakians,” the messenger said, lowering his voice as both Trojan
and Thrakian soldiers started to gather. “The king wants only loyal Trojan
soldiers to come to the defense of the city. He said the Thrakians were to guard
the fortress of Dardanos.”

Kalliades snorted. Had everyone in Troy forgotten that he and Banokles had
been Mykene soldiers only a few years previously? He gave orders that the
messenger be given food and water, then said to Banokles, “It is all very well
to say ‘ride immediately.’ But how? A man can walk across this bridge, but we
cannot take horses across. And it is an extra day’s ride to go around.”

The stocky figure of Khalkeus, who had been hovering within earshot, pushed
forward and said impatiently, “It is a simple problem, easily solved. My workmen
will fix a line of sturdy planks crosswise along the length of the bridge,
widening it to the pace of a tall man. Then the horses can be blindfolded and
led across in single file. It is quite simple,” he repeated.

“Will it take their weight?” Banokles asked doubtfully.

“Of course,” the engineer said irritably. “It will take whatever weight I
choose it to take.”

Kalliades glanced at the sky. “How long will it take?”

“As long as it takes to stop answering stupid questions.” The redheaded
engineer turned on his heel and started hurling orders at his workmen. Within
moments, men were sawing planks and others were running to fetch more timber.

Kalliades and Banokles walked back to where Tudhaliyas waited quietly with
his men, already dressed to ride.

“Will you join us in the defense of Troy?” Kalliades asked, though he could
guess the Hittite’s answer.

Tudhaliyas shook his head ruefully. “No, my friend. And you would not want me
to. If my men and I were to fight for Troy, then my father could never agree to
come to the city’s aid. As it is, I shall return and send word of your plight,
and maybe the emperor will send an army.”

“Priam might well prefer the aid of your three hundred men now than a Hittite
army camped at his gates some day in the future,” Kalliades said. “That might
seem more like a threat than the helping hand of an ally.”

Tudhaliyas smiled. “Perhaps you are right. War makes friends of enemies and
enemies of friends, does it not, Mykene?”

With that he turned and mounted his horse, and the Hittite warriors set off
toward the north.

Banokles hawked and spit on the ground. “Good riddance,” he said. “Never
liked the cowsons.”

Kalliades sighed. “Those three hundred cowsons would have been very useful,”
he said. “As it is, it’s just you and me and our fifty of the Horse.”

“I will ride with you, General, with my fifty,” said a voice.

The Thrakian leader Hillas, Lord of the Western Mountain, strode down the
defile toward them. His hair and beard were braided, and his face was adorned
with blue streaks in the Kikones fashion.

“Priam says the Thrakian warriors should stay here and defend Dardanos,”
Banokles said reluctantly. “I don’t know why. Any one of you Kikones boys is
worth two of his poxy Eagles.”

Hillas chuckled. “We all know that if Troy falls, Dardanos is lost. Then the
Kikones will never regain their homeland. I have pledged my allegiance to King
Periklos, and I will fight for him in Troy. My men will ride with you whether
we’re wanted or not. Priam will not reject our aid when we stand before him with
Mykene heads on our lances.”

Now, in the rain-dark wood, Kalliades gave up wishing the dawn would come and
returned to the campfire, where Banokles was lying on his back in his armor.

“We’ll be in Troy tomorrow,” Banokles said happily. “We’ll have a good fight,
kill a hundred of the bastard enemy, then I’ll go home and see Red and have a
few jugs of wine.”

“The perfect day,” Kalliades remarked.

Banokles lifted his head and turned to him, firelight glinting on his blond
hair and beard. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

Kalliades lay down beside him on the wet grass. “Nothing,” he said, and he
realized it was true. He was cold and rain-soaked and hungry, facing a battle
the next day against overwhelming odds, yet he felt a rare sense of contentment.

He smiled. “I think we’ve spent too long together, Banokles,” he said. “I’m
getting more like you every day.”

He saw his friend frown in the firelight and open his mouth to reply, but
suddenly there was a commotion of stamping and neighing among the tethered
horses. Some of the men climbed wearily to their feet to calm the horses.

Banokles said, “It’s that big bastard black horse again, causing trouble. I
don’t know why we brought it with us.”

“Yes, you do,” Kalliades told him patiently. “You were there when Hektor said
the horse should be treated with honor as a hero of Troy. We couldn’t leave a
Trojan hero with Vollin and his Thrakians.”

As well as their own mounts, the small force from Dardanos was leading the
last twelve of Helikaon’s golden horses, three of them pregnant mares, and the
great horse that had jumped the chasm with Queen Halysia and her son on his
back.

“We ought to call it something,” Banokles said thoughtfully. “We can’t just
keep calling it ‘that big bastard horse.’ It ought to have a name.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Ass Face.”

There were quiet chuckles from the listening men around the campfire. “You
call all your horses Ass Face, Banokles,” said the rider sitting next to him.

“Only the good ones,” Banokles said indignantly.

“We should call it Hero,” Kalliades suggested.

“That’s it, Hero,” Banokles said. “Good name. Perhaps he’ll be less trouble
now that he’s got a name.” He shifted uncomfortably where he lay and with a
grunt of satisfaction pulled a small branch out from under him.