The Hittite (27 page)

The rains poured down day after day out of sullen gray skies. We were wet to our skins, our cloaks and clothing soaked, our bags of provisions sodden. The donkeys trudged through the mud slowly, grudgingly. The horses were spattered with mud up to their bellies. We were miserable, cold, our tempers fraying. Some nights it rained so hard we couldn’t even start a cook fire.

With the rain came fever. I felt hot and cold at the same time, shivering and sweating. That farmer’s dung-coated pitchfork probably carried the evil demons that clamped the fever on me. I grew too weak to drive a wagon, too dizzy even to mount a horse. I lay in the wagon among the soggy, rain-soaked bundles, alongside Poletes.

Helen tended me. She made a tent from horse blankets that kept most of the rain off us. I lay under it, helpless as a baby.

I had crazy dreams: about Aniti, but sometimes she was Helen, and then my two boys were grown men fighting on the battlements of Troy against me. Gods and goddesses appeared in my dreams, and always the goddesses had Helen’s face.

Despite all the rigors of our trek she was still beautiful. Even in my fever-weakened condition I could see that she didn’t need paints or gowns or jewelry. Even with her face smudged with mud and her hair tied up and tucked under the cowl of a long dirty cloak, nothing could hide those wide blue eyes, those sensuous lips, that flawless skin.

Slowly the fever left me, until one day I felt strong enough to take over the reins of the wagon once again. Helen smiled brightly at me.

“It’s a lovely day,” she said. And indeed it was. The clouds were breaking up and warm sunshine made the land glow.

Lukkawi and Uhri scrambled up to sit on either side of me and I let them take turns holding the reins for a few moments. It made them happy.

Poletes was gaining strength, too, and even some of his old quizzical spirit. He rode in our creaking cart and pestered whoever was driving to describe to him everything he saw, every leaf and rock and cloud, in detail.

In truth, the rainy season was behind us at last. The days grew warm, with plentiful sunshine. The nights were balmy and filled with breezes that set the trees to sighing. I felt strong enough to ride a horse again and retook my place at the head of our little column.

Magro nosed his horse up beside me. “You’re leaving Helen in the wagon?” A crooked smile snaked across his bearded face.

“She’s with Poletes and my boys,” I said, knowing where his sense of humor was leading and wishing to avoid it.

But Magro said, “Maybe I’ll go back and drive the wagon for a while. Show her my skills at handling stubborn asses.”

“Drakon is handling the wagon.”

“He’s just a lad,” said Magro. “Why, if Helen should smile at him he wouldn’t know what to do about it.”

“And you would, eh?”

With a grin and a shrug Magro replied, “I’ve had some experience with women.”

“With a sword in one hand,” I said.

“No, no—
willing
women! Back at the camp by Troy I had to fight them off.”

I laughed. “I can’t picture you fighting off willing women.”

“I didn’t say I won every battle.”

More seriously, I told Magro, “Listen, old friend. She’s a noblewoman. She was the Queen of Sparta. And a princess of Troy. She’s got no interest in a battle-scarred soldier.”

Magro nodded, a bit ruefully. “Maybe so. But she took good care of you when the fever had you down.”

“That’s because I’m the leader of this troop that’s protecting her. She’s got no passion for any of us. Her interest is strictly self-protection.”

Magro said nothing, but the expression on his face showed clearly that he didn’t believe me.

It was two days later that we first spied Ephesus.

We had spent the morning trudging tiredly uphill through a sudden springtime thunderstorm, wet and cold and aching. I was driving the wagon again and Helen sat beside me, wrapped in a royal blue hooded cloak. I had sent two of the men ahead as scouts, and detailed two more to trail behind us, a rear guard to warn of bandits skulking in our rear— or Achaians trying to catch up with us. I still could not believe that Menalaos had given up Helen so easily.

As we came to the top of the hill the rain slackened away as suddenly as it had started. The sun came out; its warmth felt good on my shoulders. One of our scouts was waiting on the edge of the muddy road.

“The city.” He pointed.

Ephesus lay below us in a pool of golden sunlight that had broken through the scudding gray clouds. The city glittered like a beacon of warmth and comfort, white marble gleaming in the sunshine.

We all seemed to gain strength from the sight, and made our way down the winding road from the hills to the seaport city of Ephesus.

Magro rode up beside our wagon. “There’re no walls around the city!” he marveled.

“Ephesus is dedicated to Artemis the Healer,” said Helen. “Men from every part of the world come here to be cured of their ailments. A sacred spring has waters with magical curative powers.”

I couldn’t help giving her a skeptical look.

“It’s true,” said Poletes, groping his way up to the front of the wagon to stand between Helen and me. “Everyone knows the truth of it. There are no walls around the city. None are needed. No army has ever tried to take it or sack it. Everyone knows that the city is dedicated to the goddess Artemis and her healing arts; not even the most barbarian king
would dare to attack it, lest he and his entire army would fall to Artemis’ invisible arrows, which bring plague and painful death.”

That reminded me. “Artemis is a moon goddess, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Helen said, nodding. “And the sister of Apollo.”

“Then she must have favored Troy in the war.”

“I suppose she did.”

“It didn’t do her much good, though,” Magro said, with a chuckle. “Did it?” His horse nodded, as if in agreement.

“But she’ll be angry with us,” I said.

Helen’s eyes widened beneath her blue hood. “Then we must find her temple as soon as we enter the city and make a sacrifice to placate her.”

“What do we have to offer for a sacrifice?” I asked.

Magro jabbed a finger at the donkeys wearily pulling our wagon. “This team of asses. They’re about half dead anyway.”

“Don’t make light of it,” Poletes insisted, his voice stronger than his frail body. “The gods hear your words, and they will punish mockery.”

“I will offer my best ring,” Helen said. “It is made of pure gold and set with rubies.”

“You could buy a whole caravan of donkeys with that,” Magro said.

“Then it should placate Artemis very nicely,” Helen replied, in a tone that said the matter was settled.

What ever its patron deity, Ephesus was civilization. Even the streets were paved with marble. Stately temples with fluted white marble columns were centers of healing as well as worship. The city was well accustomed to hosting visitors, and there were plenty of inns available. We chose the first one we came to, at the edge of the city. It was almost empty at this time of the year, just after the ending of the rainy season. Wealthier travelers preferred to be in the heart of the city or down by the docks where the boats came in.

The innkeeper was a lean, angular man with a totally bald head, a scrawny fringe of a beard, shrewd eyes, and at least a dozen sons and daughters who worked at various jobs around the inn. He was happy enough to have the ten of us as his guests, although he looked hard at my two little boys.

“They’re well behaved,” I told him before he could work up the nerve to say anything about them.

A look of understanding dawned on his face. “Your sons?”

“Yes. Treat them well.”

“Of course, sir. Of course. My own daughters will watch over them.”

Then he glanced at Helen, who had kept the cowl of her robe pulled up over her golden hair. “And your wife, sir?”

“She will require a room of her own,” I said.

He nodded and smiled knowingly. “Next to yours.”

I smiled back. “Of course.”

Gesturing to our two miserable, creaky wagons, the innkeeper said grandly, “Your goods will be perfectly safe here, sir, even if they were made of solid gold. My sons protect this inn and no thief will touch what is yours.”

I wondered how certain of that he would have been if he’d known that inside the boxes we lifted out of the wagons there really were treasures of gold and jewels from gutted Troy. I let his four sons handle our baggage, but I watched them closely as they stacked the boxes in the inn’s largest room. I chose to sleep in that room myself, together with blind Poletes and the boys. Helen disappeared into the next room, but almost immediately a pro cession of younger women paraded in, four of them tugging a large round wooden tub, others bearing soaps and powders and what ever else women use in their baths.

I frowned with worry over that. A stranger with an entourage that includes a blind old man and a golden-haired beauty. How long will it take that news to spread throughout the city? How long before it reaches the ears of Menalaos or one his men, even if they are half a world away from here?

But there were more immediate problems to deal with. A bony, sallow-faced girl presented herself and offered to watch my sons. I told her not to let them go beyond the inn’s courtyard. After endless days on the road, Lukkawi and Uhri were eager to explore this new and fascinating set of buildings and their yard. They ran off happily with the girl.

The city had whore houses, of course, and my men were eager to sample their wares. Once we got all our baggage stacked in my room I gave Magro permission to go.

“They’ll be back in the morning,” he told me.

“You go with them,” I said. “Try to keep them together.”

His heavy brows rose. “You’ll need someone to guard our goods.”

“I’ll stand guard. You go with the men and try to keep them out of trouble.”

Magro couldn’t hide the grin that broke across his face. “I’ll bring them back in the morning.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Enjoy the city. You’ve earned a night’s entertainment.”

“And you?”

Gesturing to the boxes stacked against the wall, I said, “I’ll guard our treasure.”

“Alone?”

“I have the innkeeper’s ferocious sons.” Two of the grown sons were big and burly, the other two slight and wiry, as if they had been born of a different mother. They hardly seemed dangerous to us, not after the fighting we had seen, but they were probably adequate to ward off sneak thieves.

“And I am here also,” said Poletes, from the bed where he was sitting. “Even without ears I can hear better than a bat. In the dark of night I will be a better guard than you with your two eyes.”

If you don’t snore, I thought.

Helen, in the next room, had commandeered two of the innkeeper’s young daughters to serve her. I heard them chattering and giggling as they hauled buckets of steaming water up the creaking stairs and poured them into the wooden tub for her bath. None of them knew who we were, of course. Or at least, I hoped that none of them had pieced together the significance of a golden-haired beauty traveling with a gaggle of Hatti soldiers and a blind man. As long as no one from Troy has reached Ephesus before us, I reasoned, we were safe.

Still, I was fretful. I paced my room as I munched on the dried figs and tough strips of dried goat meat that the innkeeper had sent for our early dinner.

I stepped out onto the balcony and saw Lukkawi and Uhri playing tag together while the innkeeper’s daughter sat on the ground by the stables, elbows on her knees, watching them. Their laughter lifted my heart. I realized that there is little in the world as happy as the laughter of children.

“Can you see the city?” Poletes asked, still sitting on our bed.

I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see it. “Yes. Right outside our balcony, beyond the window.”

“Tell me, what is it like?” He got to his feet, his arms stretched out before him, and stepped uncertainly toward the sound of my voice.

I took his arm and led him out to the balcony. The street on which the inn fronted ran downhill toward the wharves at the water’s edge. Poletes could hear the sounds from the street, but he begged me to describe what I saw. I told him of the temples, the inns, the busy streets thronged with people in colorful robes, the chariots and wagons rolling by, the bustling port, the billowing sails out in the harbor, the splendid houses up on the hills. Ephesus was a prosperous city, peaceful and seemingly secure.

“There must be an agora in the heart of the city, a marketplace,” Poletes said, cackling with anticipation. “Tomorrow one of the men can take me there and I will tell the story of the fall of Troy, of Achilles’ pride and Agamemnon’s cruelty, of the burning of the great city and the slaughter of its heroes. The people will love it!”

“No,” I said as I came in off the balcony. “We can’t let these people know who we are. It’s too dangerous.”

He turned his blind eyes toward me. The scars left by the burns seemed to glower at me accusingly.

“But I’m a storyteller! I have the greatest story anyone’s ever heard, here in my head.” He tapped his temple, just above the ragged slit where his ear had been. “I can make my fortune telling this story!”

“Not here,” I said softly. “And not now.”

“But Master Lukka, I can stop being a burden to you! I could earn my own way! I could become famous!”

“Whoever heard of a storyteller becoming famous?” I growled.

“You’ll be able to travel faster without me,” Poletes insisted. “At least let me—”

“Not while she’s with us,” I said.

He snorted angrily. “That woman has caused more agony than any mortal woman ever born.”

“Perhaps so. But until I see her safely accepted in Egypt, where she can be protected, you’ll tell no tales about Troy.”

Poletes grumbled and mumbled as he groped his way back to the bed. I stayed with him and steered him clear of the stacked boxes of loot.

As the old storyteller plopped down on the dusty feather mattress I heard a scratching at the door. Picking up my sword from the table by the bed, I held it by the scabbard and went to the door, opening it a crack.

It was one of the innkeeper’s daughters, a husky, dimpled girl with mistrustful dark eyes.

She curtsied clumsily and said, “The lady asks if you will come to her chamber.”

I looked up and down the hallway. It was empty, although anyone might be hiding behind the closed doors of the other rooms.

“Tell her I’ll be there in a few moments,” I said.

Shutting the door, I went to the bed and sat on it beside Poletes.

“You needn’t say anything,” he told me. “You’re going to her. She’ll snare you in her web of allurements.”

“You have a poet’s way of expression,” I said.

“Don’t try to flatter me.”

Ignoring his petulance, I asked, “Can you guard our goods until I return?”

He grunted and turned this way and that on the soft bedding and finally admitted, “I suppose so.”

“You’ll yell loudly if anyone tries to enter this room?”

“I’ll wake the whole inn.”

“Can you bar the door behind me and find your way back to the bed again?”

“What difference if I stumble and break my neck? You’ll be with your lady love.”

I had to laugh. “She’s not my lady love. I’ll probably be with her only a few moments. I have no intention—”

“Oh, no, not at all!” He hooted. “Just make sure that you don’t bellow like a mating bull. I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

Feeling like a schoolboy sneaking out to play, I went to the door and bade Poletes a pleasant nap.

“I sleep very lightly, you know,” he said.

Whether he meant to reassure me that no thief would be able to
sneak in to rob us, or to warn me to be quiet in Helen’s room, next door, I could not tell. Perhaps he meant both.

I belted my sword to my hip and stepped out of the room, closing the door softly behind me. I waited until I heard the bar behind it slide into place. The hallway was still empty, and I could see no dark corners or niches where an enemy could lurk in ambush. Nothing but the worn, tiled floor, the plastered walls, and six wooden doors of other rooms. My men had taken three of them, I knew, but they were off in the city enjoying themselves. On the other side of the hall was a railing of split logs that overlooked the central courtyard of the inn and its packed dirt floor.

My boys were still playing in the courtyard; I could hear their shouts and laughter.

Very well then, I told myself. And I went to Helen’s door.