Fall of Kings (29 page)

“Slightly less. Maybe seven hundred dead and two hundred so grievously
wounded that they will not fight again soon, if ever. A hospital has been set up
on the edge of the lower town, in the Ilean barracks. Many of our physicians and
healers have moved there from the House of Serpents.”

“And the Ilos regiment?”

Antiphones shrugged. “They are soldiers. They will rest wherever they can.”

Priam looked around him. “And where is General Lucan? The Heraklions are not
represented here.”

“The Heraklion regiment is still on the field. I thought it best to leave one
general at the Scamander in case of a further attack tonight.”

“Do you expect such an attack?”

“No.”

Priam nodded. “My Hektor will be here in three or four days. We have only to
hold until then. When the main force of the Trojan Horse arrives, these western
jackals will be driven back to the sea, their tails between their legs.”

Banokles saw Antiphones and Polites exchange a glance. Priam saw it, too.

He leaned forward in his throne. “I know you think me an old fool, my sons.
But my confidence in Hektor has never been misplaced. The Trojan Horse always
prevails. It won at Kadesh, and it will win here. Agamemnon and his lackeys will
be driven back to the pass. We will retake the pass and King’s Joy. Then the
enemy will find itself trapped in the Bay of Herakles, with Hektor on one side
and our ships on the other. We will pick them off like fleas off a dog.”

“At present, however, our fleet is trapped in the Bay of Troy, with
Agamemnon’s ships holding the Hellespont,” Antiphones pointed out. “The
Dardanian fleet was crippled in the sea battle off Carpea. And we don’t know
where Helikaon is.”

Priam dismissed this impatiently. “When the
Xanthos
returns, Aeneas
will deal with the enemy ships. All fear his fire hurlers. He will destroy the
fleet as he destroyed the one at Imbros; then he will break the blockade of the
Hellespont.”

Antiphones shook his head. “We cannot be sure the Golden Ship even survived
the winter,” he argued. “We have heard nothing since the turn of the year. We
cannot rely on Helikaon.” He paused. “You expect a lot from two men, even heroes
like Hektor and Helikaon,” he added with a hint of impatience.

The king rounded on him. “Two men like them are worth a thousand of the likes
of you! I despise you, all you naysayers and doom-mongers. My Hekabe warned me
against you. Remember the prophecy, she said. Troy will prevail and be eternal.”

He sat back exhausted and for a while seemed deep in thought. The silence
stretched, and Banokles shifted on his feet, anxious to be off.

When Priam spoke at last, his voice had become sharp and querulous. “Where is
Andromache? Bring her to me. I have not seen her today.”

Polites spoke for the first time. He placed his hand on his father’s shoulder
and said in a voice of great gentleness, “She is not here, Father. She is aboard
the
Xanthos
with Aeneas.” He glared at Antiphones, then said, “Come,
Father, you need your rest.”

“I need some wine,” the old man retorted, but he stood up uncertainly and
allowed himself to be led back to the stone staircase.

Antiphones turned to Banokles with a sigh. “By the war god Ares, I hope
Hektor gets here soon,” he said.

Free at last, Banokles hurried from the
megaron,
climbed on his
waiting horse, and galloped back down through the city. The Scaean Gate, now
closed all day as well as at night, was opened for him, and he sped toward the
Street of Potters, his heart full. His mind already had shrugged off the
problems of the day, the burdens of leadership, and the battles that awaited
tomorrow in his eagerness to see Red.

He threw himself off his horse as he reached his home and only then realized
that a crowd had gathered at the small white house.

A neighbor, a potter called Alastor, ran up to him, his face pale. “Banokles,
my friend…”

Banokles grabbed him by the front of his tunic and looked around at the men’s
anxious faces, the women’s red eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

“What’s happening?” he thundered. He shook Alastor. “What in Hades is going
on?”

“It’s your wife, Red,” the man stuttered.

Banokles threw him to one side and rushed into the house. Lying on a sheet of
white linen in the center of the main room was Red. Her body had been washed and
clothed in a white gown, but no one could hide the blue sheen to her face or the
dark bruises around her neck.

Banokles fell to the floor beside her, his mind in shock, his thoughts in
turmoil.

“Red.” He took her shoulders and shook her gently. “Red!” But her body was
stiff and cold under his trembling hands.

Banokles stood, his face white with fury, and the people crowding around him
moved back nervously.

“What happened? You, potter! What happened?” He advanced menacingly toward
the frightened man.

“It was the old baker, my friend,” Alastor told him. “The one who made the
honey cakes she loved. He strangled her, Banokles, then opened his own throat
with a knife. He is out there.” He gestured to the courtyard.

“He told his daughter he loved Red and couldn’t live without her. He was
leaving the city and wanted her to go with him, but she refused him. He asked
her over and over, but she laughed at him.”

But Banokles wasn’t listening. With an anguished roar he threw himself into
the paved courtyard, where he found the small form of Krenio lying on the
ground, one of Red’s gowns tightly gripped in one hand, the other holding a
knife. His blood had soaked the ground around his head.

Banokles tore the dress from the man’s hand and flung it furiously to one
side. Then he drew his dagger and drove it into the baker’s chest. Shouting
incoherently, tears running down his face, he plunged the knife over and over
into the dead man’s body.

Skorpios was tired, and not just from the long day of riding. His weariness
was bone-deep. He was tired of the war and tired of battle. He longed to see his
father’s farm again and to sit at the table with his family, listening to their
mundane stories of lost sheep or weevils on the vines.

He glanced down into the grassy hollow where his comrade Justinos,
broad-shouldered and shaven-headed, was striking flint, sending glittering
sparks into the dry tinder. A small flame flickered, and Justinos bent forward
to blow gently. The fire caught, and he carefully added a few more twigs.

The two riders were making late camp just beneath the top of a hill. Scouts
for Hektor’s Trojan Horse, they were ahead of the main army as it made speed to
get back to Troy, crossing the Ida range on the well-worn route from Thebe Under
Plakos to the Golden City. They were expecting the rest of the force to catch up
with them by nightfall.

Skorpios sat staring out across the darkening country to the northwest. The
air was fragrant with the scent of evening flowers. Finally he sighed and moved
back down to the camp. Justinos glanced up at him but said nothing. He handed
Skorpios a hunk of corn bread, and the two men ate in silence.

“You think Olganos will still be in Troy?” Skorpios asked, as Justinos spread
his blanket on the ground, ready for sleep.

The big man shrugged. “There are only a hundred of the Horse in the city.
They’ll be in the thick of it every day until we get there. They may all be dead
already.”

“He is tough, though,” Skorpios persisted.

“We are all tough, boy,” Justinos muttered, stretching out and closing his
eyes.

“I want to go home, Justinos. I’m sick of all this.”

Justinos sighed and then sat up, adding more sticks to the blaze. “We are
going home,” he said.

“I mean
my
home. Far away from war.”

Justinos smiled grimly. “Far away from war? There is nowhere on the Great
Green that is far away from war.”

Skorpios stared at his friend. “It must end one day, surely.”

“This war? Of course. Then there’ll be another, and another. Best not to
dwell on it. The land is quiet here, and we are safe for at least this night.
That is good enough for me.”

“Not for me. I dread tomorrow.”

“Why? Nothing will happen tomorrow. We’ll just carry on riding north,
watching for ambush. Hektor will stop beneath Gargaron, as he always does, to
sacrifice to Father Zeus. What’s special about tomorrow?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

“Then what is there to dread? Listen to me, boy;
now
is all there is.
Yesterday is gone. Nothing we can do about it. Tomorrow is a mystery. Nothing we
can do about that, either, until we get there. Let Hektor and the generals worry
about tomorrow. That’s their job.”

“And Banokles,” Skorpios pointed out.

Justinos chuckled. “Yes, and Banokles, I suppose. I’d feel sorry for the man,
but anyone with the balls to marry Big Red should be able to cope with being a
general.”

“Why would anyone marry a whore?” Skorpios asked.

“Now, that is just plain stupid,” Justinos snapped. “What does being a whore
have to do with anything?”

“Would you marry a whore?”

“Why not? If I loved her and if she could give me sons.”

Skorpios looked at him in disbelief. “But they are ungodly and impure.”

Justinos’ eyes narrowed, and his face darkened. “Ungodly? By the balls of
Ares, I am glad I wasn’t raised in your little village. You listen to me,
Skorpios. My mother was a whore, my father unknown. I was raised among whores. A
few were nasty, some evil, some grasping. But most were ordinary, like you and
me. Many were loving, honest, and compassionate. Just people doing whatever they
had to in order to survive. Ungodly and impure? If you weren’t my friend, I’d
ram your head against that tree trunk there. Now shut up and let me sleep.”

Justinos lay down once more, turning his back on his friend and tugging his
blanket over his shoulder.

Skorpios sat with his back against an oak tree and dozed for a while. The
moon was high in a clear sky when they heard the thunder of hoofbeats, hundreds
of them, that told him Hektor’s Trojan Horse had caught up with them. He kicked
Justinos awake, and they both quickly lit prepared torches and stood holding
them high. Within heartbeats they were surrounded by riders on horseback, dust
kicking up around them, their armor shining in the moonlight.

Out of the darkness rode a huge warrior on a bay stallion. He leaned down
toward them, and his golden hair seemed to flicker in the torchlight.

“Justinos. Skorpios. Anything to report?” Hektor asked.

Justinos stepped forward. “Nothing, lord. All we’ve seen all day are birds
and rabbits and some bear. It’s as if the countryside is deserted.”

“It is deserted,” the prince agreed. “I expected Agamemnon to mount an ambush
on our route. He knew we would be coming. But it seems I’m wrong. Perhaps he has
thrown everything he has at Troy.”

He sat back on his horse and looked up for a moment at the full moon. Then,
raising his voice above the snorting of horses and the quiet conversation of the
riders, he shouted. “No stopping tonight, lads! We ride through the night!”

Justinos and Skorpios quickly began to pack their equipment as horses surged
around them.

“It seems, boy,” Justinos said quietly, “tomorrow has arrived earlier than we
expected.”

The time passed with excruciating slowness as the bloody slaughter on the
plain went on. For Kalliades the days were starting to blur together. In the
light of day he fought alongside the men of the Scamandrian regiment, the sword
of Argurios hacking and slashing at the enemy. There was no place here for
sword-fighting skills, just bloody butchery. At night he rested where he could,
sheer exhaustion tumbling him into sleep despite the moans and cries of the
dying and the thick stench of hundreds of burning corpses in his nostrils.

On the fifth morning, he awoke to find that dawn had long passed and the sun
was high in the sky, yet the enemy still had not attacked.

Weary beyond words, Kalliades sat his horse alongside Banokles, Antiphones,
and General Lucan of the Heraklion regiment, a small wiry man with bandy legs,
his hair grizzled and his face deeply lined, who had served his king and Troy
for time out of mind.

Kalliades looked at Banokles, who sat staring at Agamemnon’s armies, his face
expressionless, his blue eyes as cold as winter rain. When Kalliades had heard
of Red’s death, he had rushed to his friend’s house and found him slumped in the
corner of the courtyard, his eyes fixed on the mutilated corpse of the old
baker. Banokles had not spoken but had stood and left his home without looking
again at his wife’s body. He had returned to the battlefield and sat all night
by the river, waiting for the enemy’s attack. Since then he had fought like a
man possessed, his two swords dealing death wherever he walked. The Scamandrians
worshipped him as Herakles reborn and fought like demons beside him, awed by his
untiring and relentless attacks on the enemy.

“Here we go,” Banokles said, his voice flat, and Kalliades turned back to the
field of battle, where the enemy armies were forming up. In the center was the
Mykene phalanx, but narrower than they had seen it before, flanked on each side
by another infantry phalanx, then cavalry at the wings.

“Thessalian infantry and cavalry on our left. Achilles will be there with his
Myrmidons,” said old Lucan, squinting. “I can’t make out who they’ve got on the
right today.”

“Kretans,” Banokles said. “Kretan horsemen, anyway. Gutsy bunch, they are.
I’m surprised they haven’t thrown them in before.”

“They may have just arrived,” Antiphones rumbled. “Ships are sailing into the
Bay of Herakles every day, and not just with food and weapons. Mercenaries are
coming from all over the Great Green in the hope of winning some of Priam’s
treasure. That’s probably a mercenary regiment on the right.”