by Ben Bova
“… and do you remember when Hector drove them all back inside our own gates here, and he came scurrying in with an arrow barely puncturing his skin, crying like a woman, ‘We’re doomed! We’re doomed!’ ”
The crowd around the fire roared with laughter. I had to admit that the old storyteller could mimic Agamemnon’s high voice perfectly. He was in good fettle, the gloom and melancholy of only an hour or so earlier seemed entirely gone now. Perhaps it was the audience surrounding him that had changed his mood. More likely it was the wine; I saw an empty flagon resting on its side an arm’s length from his squatting figure.
“I wonder what Clytemnestra will do when her brave and noble husband comes home?” Poletes went on. “I wonder if her bed is high enough off the ground to hide all her lovers?”
Men rolled on the ground with laughter. Tears flowed. I started to push my way through the crowd to get him.
Too late. A dozen armed men tramped in. Poletes’ audience scrambled out of their way like leaves blown by the wind. I recognized Menalaos at their head.
“Storyteller!” he roared. “The High King wants to hear what you have to say. Let’s see if your scurrilous tales can make him laugh.”
Poletes’ eyes went wide with sudden fear. “But I only—”
Two of the armed soldiers grabbed him under his armpits and hauled him to his feet.
“Come along,” said Menalaos.
I stepped in front of them. “This man is my servant. I will deal with him.”
Before Menalaos could reply, Nestor bustled up. “The High King has demanded to see this teller of tales. No one can interfere!” It was the shortest speech I had ever heard the old man make.
With a grim shrug, Menalaos headed off toward Agamemnon, his guards dragging Poletes after him, followed by Nestor, me and many of the men who had been rollicking at the storyteller’s gibes.
Agamemnon still sat on his slightly tilted throne, fat, flushed with wine, flanked by the treasures of Troy. His chubby fingers gripped the arms of his chair as he watched Poletes being hauled before him. Jeweled rings glittered in the firelight on each finger and both his thumbs.
The old storyteller sagged to his knees, trembling before the High King, who glared down at his skinny, shabby presence.
“You have been telling lies about me,” Agamemnon snarled.
Somehow Poletes found enough courage to lift his chin and face the High King. “Not so, your royal highness. I am a professional storyteller. I do not tell lies, I speak only of what I see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears.”
“You speak filthy lies!” Agamemnon bellowed. “About me! About my wife!”
“If your wife were an honest woman, sire, I would not be here at all. I’d be in the marketplace at Argos, telling stories to the people, as I should be.”
“I’ll listen to no calumnies about my wife,” Agamemnon warned.
But Poletes, still on his knees, insisted, “The High King is supposed to be the highest judge in the land, the fairest and the most impartial. Everyone knows what is going on in Mycenae—ask anyone. Your own captive Cassandra, a princess of Troy, has prophesied—”
“Silence!” roared the High King.
“How can you silence the truth, son of Atreos? How can you turn back the destiny that fate has chosen for you?”
Now Agamemnon trembled, with anger. He hauled himself up from his chair and stepped down to the ground before Poletes.
“Hold him!” he commanded, drawing out a jeweled dagger from his belt.
Two of Menalaos’ men gripped Poletes’ frail arms.
“I can silence you, magpie, by separating you from your lying tongue.”
“Wait!” I shouted, pushing my way toward them.
Agamemnon looked up as I approached, his piggish little eyes suddenly surprised, almost fearful.
“This man is my servant,” I said. “I will punish him.”
“Very well then,” said Agamemnon, pointing his dagger toward the iron sword at my side. “You take out his tongue.”
I shook my head. “That’s too cruel a punishment for a few joking words.”
“You refuse me?”
“The man’s a storyteller,” I pleaded. “If you take out his tongue you condemn him to starvation or slavery.”
Slowly, Agamemnon’s flushed, heavy features arranged themselves into a smile. It was not a joyful one.
“A storyteller, is he?” He turned to Poletes, who knelt like a sagging sack of rags in the grip of the two burly soldiers. “You only speak of what you see and what you hear, you claim. Very well. You will see and hear nothing! Ever again.”
My guts churned as I realized what Agamemnon intended to do. I reached for my sword, only to find ten spears surrounding me, aimed at my body.
A hand clasped my shoulder. It was Odysseos, his face grave. “Be still, Hittite. The storyteller must be punished. No sense getting yourself killed over a servant.”
Poletes was staring at me, his eyes begging me to do something. I tried to move toward him, but Menalaos’ men jabbed their spear points against my leather jerkin.
“Helen has told me how you protected her during the sack of the temple,” Odysseos said, low in my ear. “She owes you a debt of gratitude. Don’t force me to repay it with your blood.”
“Then do something, say something,” I begged. “Please. Try to soothe the High King’s anger.”
Odysseos merely shook his head. “It will be all over before I could speak a word. Look.”
Nestor himself carried a glowing brand from one of the dying pyres, a wicked, perverse smile on his wrinkled face. Agamemnon took it from him as the soldiers yanked Poletes’ arms back and one of them jammed a knee against his spine. Agamemnon grabbed the old storyteller by his lank hair and pulled his head back. Again I felt the spear points jabbing against me.
“Wander through the world in darkness, cowardly teller of lies,” said the High King.
Poletes shrieked in agony as Agamemnon burned out first his left eye and then his right. The old man fainted. The smile of a sadistic madman still twisting his thick lips, Agamemnon tossed the brand away, took out his dagger again, and sliced the ears off the unconscious old man’s head.
The soldiers dropped Poletes’ limp body to the sand as the High King tossed the severed ears to the dogs scrambling behind his makeshift throne.
“Well done, Brother,” said Menalaos, with a nasty laugh.
Agamemnon looked up and called out in his loudest voice, “So comes justice to anyone who maligns the truth!” Then he turned, smirking, to me. “You can take your servant back now.”
The soldiers around me stepped back, but still held their spears leveled, ready to kill me if I moved on their king.
I looked down at Poletes’ bleeding form, then up to the High King.
“I heard Cassandra’s prophecy,” I told him. “She is never believed, but she is never wrong.”
Agamemnon’s half-demented sneer vanished. He glared at me. For a long wavering moment I thought he would command the soldiers to kill me on the spot.
But then I heard Magro’s voice calling from a little way behind me. “Lukka, are you all right? Do you need help?”
The soldiers turned their gaze toward his voice. I saw that Magro had brought my entire contingent with him. There were only five of them, but they were Hatti soldiers, fully armed with spears and shields and iron swords.
“He needs no help,” Agamemnon answered, “except to carry away the slave I have punished.”
With that he turned away and started tottering back toward his cabin, up the beach, his dogs following him. The soldiers seemed to breath one great sigh of relief and let their spears drop away from me.
I went to Poletes and picked up his bleeding, wimpering body. As we started back toward our own part of the camp, I asked Magro, “My sons?”
“Safe with Odysseos’ women. I thought you might want us to back you.”
I nodded, too angry and relieved and fille
d with disgust to speak. But after a half-dozen steps, I told Magro, “We leave camp tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?”
“I want to leave this damned place and all its blood far behind us.” “But where are we going?” Magro asked. I had no answer.
5
I tended Poletes far into the night. We had only wine to ease his pain, and nothing at all to ease the anguish of his mind. I laid him on the cot in my own tent, groaning and sobbing. Magro found a healer, a dignified old graybeard with two young women assistants. He spread a salve on his burns and the bleeding slits where his ears had been.
“Not even the gods can return his sight,” the healer told me solemnly, in a whisper Poletes could not hear. “The eyes have been burned away.”
“The gods be damned,” I growled. “Will he live?”
If my words shocked the healer he gave no sign of it. “His heart is strong. If he survives the night he could live for years to come.”
The healer mixed some powder into the wine cup and made Poletes drink. It put him into a deep sleep almost at once. His women prepared a poultice and showed me how to smear it over a cloth and put it on Po-letes’ eyes. They were silent throughout, instructing me by showing rather than speaking, as if they were mute. They never dared look directly into my face. The healer seemed surprised that I myself acted as Poletes’ nurse, but he said nothing about it and maintained his professional dignity.
I sat over the blinded old storyteller far into the night, putting fresh compresses on his eyes every hour or so, keeping him from reaching up to the burns with his hands. He slept, but even in sleep he groaned and writhed.
Twice I ducked out of the tent and checked my sons. They were still sleeping quietly, side by side, wrapped in a good blanket, oblivious to the world and all its pain.
The candle by the cot had burned down to a flickering stub. Through the flap in my tent I could see the sky starting to turn a pinkish gray with the first hint of dawn. Poletes’ breathing suddenly quickened and he made a grab for the cloth covering his eyes. I was faster and gripped his wrists before he could hurt himself.
“Master Lukka?” His voice was cracked and dry.
“Yes,” I said. “Put your hands down at your sides. Don’t reach for your eyes.”
“Then it’s true? It wasn’t a nightmare?”
I held his head up slightly and gave him a sip of water. “It’s true,” I said. “You’re blind.”
The moan he uttered would have wrenched the heart out of a marble statue.
“Agamemnon,” he said, many moments later. “The mighty king took his vengeance on the lowly storyteller. As if that will make his wife faithful to him.”
“Try to sleep,” I told him. “Rest is what you need.”
He shook his head and the cloth slid off, revealing two raw burns where his eyes had been. I went to replace the cloth, saw that it was getting dry, and smeared more poultice on it from the bowl at my side.
“You might as well slit my throat, Master. I’ll be of no use to you now. No use to anyone.”
“There’s been enough blood spilled here,” I said.
“No use,” he muttered as I put the soothing cloth over the place where his eyes had been. Then I propped up his head again and gave him more wine. He soon fell asleep once more.
Magro stuck his head into my tent. “Lukka, King Odysseos wants to see you.”
I stepped out into the brightening morning. Commanding Magro to watch over my sons and the sleeping Poletes, I walked swiftly to Odysseos’ boat and clambered up the rope ladder that dangled over its curving hull.
The deck was heaped with treasure looted from Troy. I turned from the dazzling display to look back at the city. The fires seemed to have died down, but hundreds of tiny figures were already at work up on the battlements, pulling down the blackened stones, working under the rising sun to level the walls that had defied the Achaians for so long.
I had to step carefully along the gunwale to avoid tripping over the piles of treasure spread over the deck. Odysseos was at his usual place on the afterdeck, standing in the golden sunshine, his broad chest bare, his hair and beard still wet from his morning swim. He had a pleased smile on his thickly bearded face.
Yet his eyes searched mine as he said, “The victory is complete, thanks to you, Hittite.” Pointing to the demolition work going on in the distance, he added, “Troy will never rise again.”
I nodded grimly. “Priam, Hector, Paris—the entire House of Ilios has been wiped out.”
“All but Aeneas the Dardanian. Rumor has it that he was a bastard of Priam’s. We haven’t found his body.”
“He might have been consumed in the fire.” Like my wife, I thought. But I held my tongue. No sense making an enemy of this man who had taken me into his house hold.
“It’s possible,” said Odysseos. “But I don’t think it’s terribly important. If Aeneas lives, he’s hiding somewhere nearby. We’ll find him. Even if we don’t, there won’t be anything left here for him to return to.”
As I gazed out toward the distant city, one of the massive stones of the parapet by the Scaean Gate was pulled loose by a horde of slaves straining with levers and ropes. It tumbled to the ground with a heavy cloud of dust. Moments later I heard the thump.
“Apollo and Poseidon won’t be pleased with what’s being done to the walls they built,” I said.
Odysseos laughed. “Sometimes the gods have to bow to the will of men, Hittite, whether they like it or not.”
“You’re not afraid of their anger?”
He shrugged. “If they didn’t want us to pull down the walls, we wouldn’t be able to do it.”
I wondered. The gods are subtler than men, and have longer memories.
Odysseos mistook my silence. “I heard about your wife,” he said, his voice grave. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to save her.”
“I found my sons,” I replied tightly. “They’re safe with my men now.”
“Good.” He gestured toward a large pile of loot at the stern of the boat. “It’s your turn to select your treasure from the spoils of the city, Hittite. Take one-fifth of everything you see.”
I thanked him and spent the next hour or so picking through the stuff. I selected blankets, armor, clothing, weapons, helmets: things we would need once we left this accursed place. And jewels that could be traded for food and shelter once we were away from Ilios.
“There are captives down there, between the boats. Take one-fifth of them, also.”
I shook my head. “I’d rather have horses and donkeys. Women will merely cause fights among my men.”
Odysseos eyed me carefully. “You speak like a man who has no intention of sailing to Ithaca with me.”
“My lord,” I said, “you have been more than generous to me. But no man in this camp raised a hand to rescue my wife. No man helped to save my servant from Agamemnon’s cruelty.”
“You expect much, Hittite.”
“Perhaps so, my lord. But it’s better that our paths separate here. Let me take my sons and my men, and my blinded servant, and go my own way.”
“To where?”
It was my turn to shrug. “There are always princes in need of good soldiers. I’ll find a place.”
The King of Ithaca stroked his beard for several silent moments. Finally he agreed, “Very well, Hittite. Go your own way. May the gods smile upon you.”
“And upon you, noblest of all the Achaians.”
I never saw Odysseos again.
6
Despite my eagerness to leave Troy, Poletes was in no condition to travel. He lay in my tent all day, drifting in and out of sleep, moaning softly whether asleep or awake.
The camp was bustling, noisy, slaves and thetes loading the boats with loot, carrying the trappings from the cabins of the nobles to the boats. Women were lugging cook pots and utensils to the rope baskets that were being used to haul them up to the decks. Stinking, bleating goats and sheep were being driven from their pens onto the boats. The fine h
orses that pulled the chariots were led carefully up wooden planked gangways while grunting, sweating slaves pushed the chariots themselves up the gangplanks after them. Everywhere there was shouting, calling, groaning, squealing beneath the hot morning sun. At least the wind off the water cooled the struggling workers somewhat.
I put my men to gathering horses and donkeys, and a pair of carts to go with them. I gave them some of the weapons I had taken from Odysseos’ boat to use for trading. Most of them were ornamental, with engraved bronze blades and hilts glittering with jewels: not much use in battle, but they fetched good value in trading for well-shod horses or strong little donkeys.
As I stood in front of my tent surveying the Achaians breaking up their camp and preparing to sail back to their homes, I realized that I didn’t know where my sons were. I looked around the boats, asked some of the women busily toting loads. No one had seen them since sunup.
The five-year-old’s name was Lukkawi, I recalled, named after me since he was the firstborn. I had to search my memory for his younger brother’s name. Uhri, I finally remembered.
Where were they? With growing disquiet I went from boat to boat, searching for them, calling their names over the din and commotion of the camp.
I found them splashing by themselves in the gentle wavelets lapping up onto the beach, under the stern of one of Odysseos’ black boats. They looked up and froze into wary-eyed immobility as I approached them.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said to them, as gently as I knew how. “I’m your father. Don’t you remember me?”
“Father?” asked Lukkawi in a small, fearful voice.
“Where’s my mama?” Uhri asked.
I took in a breath and squatted on my heels before them so I could be closer to eye-level with them. I realized that their eyes were gray-blue, like mine.
“Your mother’s gone away,” I said softly. “But I’m with you now and I’ll take care of you.”
“Yes, sir,” Lukkawi said. He was accustomed to receiving orders, and obeying them, even though he was barely more than five.