Fall of Kings (57 page)

For a moment she paused to glance at the other women shooting at the oncoming
horde. Their faces were determined, their movements confident. Arrow after arrow
was finding its target. Her heart soared.

“We are Trojan women,” she yelled at the enemy. “Come against us and we will
kill you!”

She no longer could see the Trojan defenders beneath her; they were hidden by
the jutting balcony. She and her archers kept shooting into the mass of enemy
faces. She did not hear the
megaron
doors close.

No time seemed to pass as she carried on shooting, yet she realized it was
growing dark. Her shoulder hurt.

“Andromache, fall back! Andromache!” She felt a hand on her arm and found
herself being dragged from the balcony. Struggling, she looked up.

“Kalliades! We must fight on!” she cried.

“We
are
fighting on, Andromache. But you must rest. You are wounded.”

“Are the doors closed?”

“We have retreated to the
megaron,
and the doors are closed. The enemy
is bringing ladders to the balcony. The fighting there will be hand to hand. It
is the only place they can hope to break in until they can force the
megaron
doors. Your women have been magnificent, and they still have a part to play. We
need you and your bows on the gallery. But you must rest first,” he urged.
“There is time. Then you will be ready to fight on.”

She nodded and looked at the wound on her shoulder. Blood was flowing freely.
She guessed an arrow had made the deep groove, though she could not remember it.
“I will have my wound dressed once the other women have been attended to.”

“That has already happened. You were the last to leave the balcony.”

“Are any of them hurt?”

“Yes, but minor wounds only.”

“Then I must see my son.”

He nodded. “Very well. Go, see your son. I will find someone to tend your
wound.”

Andromache walked through the palace, pushing her way through a
megaron
packed with men and horses, hardly seeing the frenzied activity around her, her
mind in a whirl. She still could feel the smooth wood of the bow in her palm,
the straightness of each arrow in her fingers, the muscles in her arm tensing as
she drew back, the smooth release—over and over again.

The queen’s apartments were dusty and dark. Stillness lay on the rooms as
heavily as the dust. Wounded men were being cared for in the queen’s gathering
room, so she skirted it and made her way to the rear chamber where the boys
slept. Astyanax and Dex were fast asleep, tucked up in the same bed, their two
heads, one red and one fair, close together.

Andromache watched them breathing and stroked each small head. Her mind
slowly calmed.

Behind her a voice said hesitantly, “Andromache?”

She started and turned. “Xander!” she said in surprise, embracing the
freckle-faced healer. Kalliades, who had brought him, raised an eyebrow.

“This lad says he is a healer. Clearly you know him.”

“He is a good friend of mine and of Odysseus. We voyaged together. I feared
you dead, Xander. You have been gone so long.”

As he examined her shoulder and applied ointment and a dressing, she told him
of her travels and of Gershom’s sudden departure from the
Xanthos.
Xander
explained how he had ended up in the enemy camp and talked about the time he’d
spent with Odysseus and Achilles.

“You should have taken the Ugly One’s advice,” she told him, “and fled the
city.”

“You did not,” he countered quietly.

She remembered her last talk with Polites and shook her head, smiling. “You
are right, Xander. It is not my place to judge you.”

Xander examined the deep gash on Kalliades’ thigh. “It is very angry,” he
said, frowning, “and I think corruption is setting in.” From his satchel he
brought out some dry brown vegetation. “This is tree moss,” he explained to
them. “It is old, but it still has virtue to purify.” He bound it to the wound
with a bandage. “The wound should have been stitched long since,” he told the
warrior. “I fear it will always pain you.”

Kalliades told him, “If I live through this day, I will rejoice in the pain.”

After healer and warrior had left, Andromache sat with the sleeping boys. She
scanned Astyanax’s face, seeking something of his father in the angle of an
eyebrow, the curve of an ear. She wondered again where Helikaon and the
Xanthos
were. Then the familiar demon guilt rose in her heart, and she
thought of Hektor. She realized how much she missed him and found herself
wishing he was there beside her. She always felt safe with Hektor. With Helikaon
there was always danger.

She wandered to the north window, where light was fading on the plain of the
Simoeis. She recalled her trip by donkey cart into the city with the cargo of
tin. That night she had looked up at those high windows and wondered if anyone
was up there staring down. Now she looked down into darkness and guessed no one
was there. With the city open to him, Agamemnon would not waste men guarding the
sheer north walls.

The north walls. Look to the north. Suddenly Andromache realized what the
words meant. She leaned over the window ledge and looked far down to the bottom
of the cliffs. If she could find rope, could she get two children down the
vertical cliff? She moved her wounded shoulder. Back and forth did not hurt
much, but when she lifted it above her head, the pain was agonizing. She could
never do it.

Yet Odysseus and Kassandra always gave good advice, each in his or her own
way. And they were right. It was the only path left to her now if she hoped to
save her son. She leaned over the window ledge again. Darkness was gathering,
but as she looked down, she could just make out a figure climbing toward her.

Her heart seemed suddenly to slow, and its thudding echoed in her ears. She
could not see the climber’s face, not even his age or build, but she knew
without a doubt that it was Helikaon.

Earlier that day, while the sun still sat high in the sky, Helikaon stood
impatiently on the prow of the
Xanthos
as the great bireme made her last
journey up the Simoeis.

His emotions had been in disarray since, off Lesbos two days before, they had
encountered a Kypriot vessel loaded with refugees from Troy and had heard of
Hektor’s death and the fall of the city. Hektor dead! He had found it impossible
to believe. Hektor had been feared dead before. But he heard the refugees’ tales
of the duel with Achilles, the poison and betrayal, and the great funeral pyre,
and with pain in his heart he knew it to be true.

There was no news of Andromache, but he was sure she still lived; he knew
every bone in his body would ache if she was no longer in his world.

Now, as the galley slipped up the narrowing river, he looked south toward
Troy. The oarsmen, too, kept glancing at the city, their faces grim, watching
the flames leaping from the walls, darkening the pale sky to the color of
bronze.

Suddenly Helikaon could wait no longer. He ordered the starboard rowers to
ship their oars, and the oarsmen to port guided the galley into the side. Even
as she bumped gently into the reed-covered bank, Helikaon turned and addressed
his crew.

“You are all Dardanians here,” he told them, his deep voice somber. “My fight
is not yours. I am going to the city, and I will go alone. If any of you wish to
return to Dardanos, leave here and now, and may the gods walk with you. For the
rest of you the
Xanthos
sails at dawn. If I do not return, Oniacus will
be your captain. He will first take the ship to Thera, then follow the Trojan
fleet to the Seven Hills.” He glanced at his right-hand man, who nodded. They
had discussed this at length, and he knew Oniacus would follow his orders
loyally.

But there were cries from the men, “We will go with you, Golden One!”

Helikaon shook his head. “I will go alone,” he repeated. “I do not know if
anyone can get into the city now. And if we could, even the eighty of you, brave
men and true, would make little difference against the hordes of the enemy. Go
to the Seven Hills. Many of you already have families there. It is your home
now.”

There were more shouts and entreaties from the crew. But Helikaon ignored
them, strapping to his back the scabbard with its twin leaf-bladed swords, then
hefting a thick coil of rope onto his shoulder.

The cries died down, and then a single voice asked, “Do you plan to die in
Troy, lord?”

He stared coldly at the questioner. “I plan to live,” he told him.

Then he vaulted smoothly over the side and onto the riverbank. Without a
glance back at the
Xanthos,
he set off at a steady lope toward the Golden
City.

As he ran, his thoughts were of Andromache and the boys. If she still lived,
Dex and Astyanax must be alive. She would fight to the death for them, he was
certain. Two nights and two days had passed since the enemy had entered the
city. Could anyone still be alive? How long could they hold Priam’s palace? In
the previous siege the defenders had numbered a mere handful, yet they had held
back the invaders all night. This time the number of the enemy could be a
hundred times greater. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the endless
speculation. First he had to find his way in.

It was getting dark when he reached the north walls of the city. He made his
way to the point directly beneath the queen’s apartments. Looking up, he could
see lights in the high windows. They seemed so close. Yet to get there he had to
scale a dry, crumbling vertical cliff face. That was the easy part. Above that
was the sheer limestone wall of Troy itself.

When he and Hektor had been young men, they once had competed to make this
climb. Scaling the lower cliff, with its numerous handholds and footholds and
rocky outcrops, they had ascended quickly, shoulder to shoulder. Then they had
reached the point where the cliff ended and the wall began. There was a wide
ledge there, and they had paused. They both had looked up at the golden stones
from which the wall was fashioned. They were massive, each more than the height
of a man, and so cunningly crafted that there was not the narrowest fingerhold
between them. The pair had turned to each other and laughed. They had agreed it
was impossible and had climbed down, their friendly contest over.

Now, a man ten years older, he was planning to try something a youngster at
the height of his strength could not do. Only desperation would make him attempt
it, but he could see no other choice.

He started to climb. As he remembered, the hand-and footholds were plentiful,
although dry and crumbly after the hot summer. The initial ascent was not
difficult, and within a short time he was on the ledge that marked the top of
the cliff and the bottom of the wall. He paused for breath, looking up again. He
had come this far. He could not stop now. But in the gathering dark he could see
not a single handhold.

He dropped the coil of rope on the ledge beside him. In desperation he looked
up again. Miraculously, leaning over the window ledge high above him, her
chestnut hair a halo of flame in the light from the window, was Andromache.

“Goddess,” he whispered. “I am truly blessed.”

“Andromache!” he called. “Catch the rope!”

She nodded silently. He picked up the rope again, carefully trapping the
loose end under one foot. He steadied himself, then with a mighty effort threw
the coil upward. But his caution made it fall short. Andromache grasped vainly
at thin air, and the rope fell back, missing Helikaon and looping far down the
cliff. Patiently he wound it up again. Now he had the measure of the throw, and
at his second attempt he hurled the coil harder and it landed in Andromache’s
waiting hands.

She disappeared from sight, then was swiftly back, calling down to him, “It
is secure!”

He cautiously leaned his weight on the rope, and it held firm. Within
heartbeats he had shinnied up it and was over the window ledge.

Andromache fell into his arms. Only then did he allow himself to believe
fully that she was still alive. He pressed his face into her hair. It smelled of
smoke and flowers. “I love you,” he said simply.

“I can’t believe you are here,” she answered him, gazing into his eyes. “I
feared I would never see you again.”

There were tears in her eyes, and he pulled her close, feeling her heart
beating. For a long moment time slowed. He forgot about the war and surrendered
himself to their embrace. The fears that had been plaguing him, that he would
find her dead, their sons murdered, evaporated as he held her close and their
hearts beat as one.

“Dex?” he whispered. She drew away from him and took his hand. She led him to
the little bed in the next room where the two boys lay. He bent down to look
into his son’s face and touched his fair hair.

When he turned back to Andromache, her face had become grave. They walked
back out of the room, and then she put her arms around him and drew a deep
breath. She said, “My love, there is something I must tell you.”

At that moment, the door of the chamber opened and two warriors burst in.
Kalliades and Banokles stopped in shock. Helikaon did not know which surprised
them more, his presence in the room or the fact that he was holding Andromache
in his arms.

Kalliades recovered first. “Helikaon! You come unlooked for!” He glanced
toward the window, seeing the knotted rope.

Helikaon said quickly, “Do not expect an army to come swarming up the walls.
I come to you alone. But you have my sword if it will make a difference.”

“You will always make a difference, lord,” Kalliades said, “though the
situation is grave.”

“Tell me.”

“Agamemnon has thousands waged against us. We number less than a hundred.
They have taken the palace wall. It is taking them a while to break through the
megaron
doors, but they cannot last much longer.”