by Judith Hand
“What?”
“Anything. I like to hear you talk.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said you like my voice. No one else has ever said that. What is so special about my voice?”
He tensed. Should he risk exposing his strangeness? He moved onto one elbow so she could see his face. He wanted to share everything with her. “You’ve shared a secret with me, about the poison. Now I’ll share a secret with you.”
“Remember you said I could trust you? Well, you can trust me.”
“I don’t experience the world like other people do.”
She frowned.
“It took me a long time to figure it out. I think I had fifteen years when something my mother said made it clear that I’m different.”
“Different?”
“You hear sounds. And you see colors. So does everyone else I have ever met. But I see them mixed together. When I hear a waterfall, I can close my eyes and it’s not only sound that is there, I see a shimmering aura of pinks and purples.”
She shook her head.
He said, “Close your eyes!”
She did.
“What do you see?”
“Blackness.”
“Well, if I closed my eyes, and you said the words, ‘Damon, what do you see?’ I would tell you I see a lovely yellow color.”
She opened her eyes and stared at him, still not understanding.
“And I see the colors even if I don’t close my eyes. When you talk to me, a yellow aura surrounds everything.”
“Yellow. Like sunflowers.”
“Your voice is prettier than sunflowers.”
“That sounds, well, odd, but nice.”
“The problem is, most voices, and a few other sounds, like donkey braying or reed flutes, are not. They create a sickening color I can only describe as filthy gray-brown. And the sound nauseates me. For me, being around people is like being awash continually in polecat smell. After a few days with people, I can tolerate it, but it’s still unpleasant.”
“I’ve never heard of, or even imagined, such a thing.”
“I’ve only told a few people. They either didn’t believe me, or they didn’t understand. When I told my closest friend that the sound of his voice made me sick, he decided I was cursed. He never talked to me again.”
“This is why you live alone, isn’t it?”
“It’s one of the reasons.”
“Yes, there must be others. I can’t imagine living so alone when you say you can at least bear the sickness. Will you share the other reasons?”
He shook his head and lay back down. The killings were a place he would go with no one, not even Pentha.
20
PENTHA TOOK ONE OF DAMON’S HANDS AND opened it. His hands were large with long, sturdy fingers. She felt great power in those hands. Beautiful hands.
Hearing sounds and seeing colors. Colors and sounds making Damon sick. She said, “I’m glad you told me. It explains much, although in a way, you remain just as mysterious. Maybe more so. I like mysteries.”
He grinned. “Speaking of mysteries, there is something I want to tell you. The day I came to Themiskyra, I came by the back door. I met a man on the trail, a Hittite. He said his name was Muttalusha.”
“I know him. A small man with dark, black eyes.”
“I find it extremely unusual that he took the back door.”
She sat up and looked down at his strong face and gentle eyes. “So do I. What business would an outsider have on such a dangerous path?”
“He said he’d been distracted and made the wrong turn. That makes no sense. Before he got very far, he would have known he was going wrong.”
“As soon as we return, I will tell Harmonia.”
He played with the ends of her hair. “Those were my thoughts, too.” And then, “You are astonishingly beautiful.”
“And you please me.” It surprised her how much this strange, gentle man pleased her.
She bent down and kissed him. They made love again—slowly, deliciously, resoundingly. She fell into contented sleep with the warmth of his body along her back and his hand cupping her breast.
DAMON AWOKE AT MIDDAY and his first thought, after he remembered where he was, was how beautiful life could be when a man had a companion. Over these last solitary years, he had actually forgotten the joy that comes from sharing.
Pentha appeared to be asleep. He laid his arm outside the bag and the sun’s heat soaked his skin. She snuggled closer. He said, “I feel like a bear just out of hibernation. I’m starving.”
While they dressed, he made no secret of watching her every move. When this time was over, he would want to remember everything about her to the smallest detail.
They fetched cooking supplies from the packs. He arranged the kindling they had collected so it would draw air, added bits of linen fluff, and used flint to set the lot to burning. She carried a tripod and two cups to the stream. She filled the tripod, then he watched her pull up the waterproofed goatskin of fermented mare’s milk sunken on a line, just beneath the surface to keep it cool, and pour them both a cup. They downed their first. She poured them another. He felt himself relaxing under the drink’s influence.
With the fire well caught, he sat the tripod filled with water over it. She poured in a mixture of dried meat and vegetables and stirred. They settled on a log he dragged to the fire, eating apples and sipping.
She said, “You know, I have already broken one rule by hunting with a man. I’m willing to break another. Tomorrow, if you’d like, rather than hunt, I will teach you to ride. One of the pack horses will do.”
A man riding an Amazon horse! He laughed.
“You don’t want to?”
“Actually, it’s a fine idea.”
“I’ve often wondered. Why don’t the Acheans have cavalry? I know their women don’t fight. And certainly women are much better on the horses because their bodies are lighter. But why don’t the Achean men have a cavalry?”
He didn’t want to talk fighting with her, but then, fighting was her life. “At first I wondered the same thing. But the fact is, fighting on the ground is what they have always done. In their minds, the idea of riding, except in a chariot, seems ridiculous. I’ve heard commanders poke fun, saying only women, the Amazons, would do something so foolish as to waste manpower on the back of a horse. I think if they once understood the advantages, they would ride. But so far, strong force on the ground has worked for them and worked very well. They have sacked and raided and conquered towns and cities all around the Great Sea. Their manner of doing battle has made the Achean royals powerful and rich. They have no reason to change.”
“They still have not taken Troy.”
“No, and maybe they won’t. Troy’s defenses are formidable. And she has the support of all the cities in the Troad and many powers beyond. The Hittites especially are generous with supplies. They want the Acheans out of this part of the world.”
“The Acheans are a plague. Maggots in a wound. Achilles is the worst. What a farce to claim he is the greatest warrior ever to live. That he is the grandson of Zeus. That he’s invincible.”
Her face had taken a dark look, brow creased, eyes hooded. She hissed the name Achilles with breathtaking venom. She dropped her hands to her side, as if Damon didn’t exist, as if she wasn’t here in this place with him. He’d never imagined Pentha’s face capable of so fierce a look.
What was it in her that stoked such white-hot fire? She wasn’t angry at him, but with something else. Perhaps something in herself.
The Fates were playing with him. He wanted her. Beyond all reason, he wanted this magnificent woman as his mate. Walls he had so painstakingly built to keep away pain and despair had been breached.
21
THEY SPENT THE NEXT DAY RIDING. AND THE next. He would have sworn that he fell off more than he rode, and they laughed more than he had laughed in eight years. Last night, while he slept with Pentha in his arms, the winter’s first snow arriv
ed. The trees and ground lay lightly spread with a crisp white blanket, and flakes like tiny white leaves still fluttered down in slow glides from a gray heaven, cloaking the land with peace. Damon’s breath rose white from his mouth.
He hoisted the last pack onto the horse, and she held it while he secured it. She had bundled herself in a coat of black sable and her red hair, once more braided at her nape, made a startling contrast with the dark fur. Sadness squatted heavy as a millstone on his heart. He must make a hard decision, and he thought it unlikely he would ever again see Pentha’s magnificent hair flowing freely to her waist.
Taking a lead rope each, they started for Themiskrya. She stopped and looked back.
He asked, “What are you thinking?”
She smiled. They started walking again. “We’ve had three days I want to remember.”
“I’m glad you asked me to come.”
“It’s fun, hunting with a man.” She gave him a mischievous grin. “You can do more than just hunt and tell stories.”
He wished he could believe that their coupling meant she loved him as he now knew he loved her, but he was quite certain it did not. A man could tell. “I think I told you once that I liked living with a woman all the time. That’s one of the reasons.”
“If a man and woman were together all the time, they would soon bore each other.”
“I didn’t find that to be so.” A silent pause, then he said, “Wouldn’t you like to live with a husband, as other people do? As they do in Troy?” Couldn’t you want to live with me? “What did your mother say to you about leaving Themiskyra for a man?”
“She never talked about him except to say that she loved him. He was away most of the time, and I think she was lonely. If she had stayed in Themiskyra, she would not have been lonely. Besides, living with a man isn’t the Amazon way.”
“If a woman were to live with me, I would never leave her to be lonely.” I would never let you be lonely. “Surely your mother wasn’t too unhappy. She had you. Don’t you want to have children?”
“Of course. But I can’t now. When my service is over, I will consider marriage. It’s only seven more years.”
“Actually, seven years is a long time. Many things can happen to a woman who regularly goes into battle.”
“It’s my duty.”
“I was a warrior. I did my duty. It didn’t make me happy. Don’t you think being happy, being truly at peace, is more important than some duties?”
“I don’t deserve to be happy.”
Stunned, he stared at her. But she just kept walking. Since he could think of no sensible reply to such an astonishing pronouncement, he let the silence draw out.
AS PENTHA APPROACHED THE Amazon encampment a feeling of emptiness settled on her. Very shortly she was going to say goodbye to Damon. He would not be going to the men’s compound where she might expect to see him again soon if she chose to. He would return to his isolated mountain world. Being with a man for three days had unsettled her—especially being with a man like Damon, who at every instant made her feel valued in a way she’d never felt before.
At the Amazon encampment, he could go no further. He handed her the lead rope from his packhorse. She said, “I think if you kept at it, you might someday make an outstanding horseman.”
“Two days of lessons aren’t much to judge by.”
“Ah, but it is. You have a feeling for the animal. Most men don’t realize how very skittish they are.”
An uncomfortable silence vibrated the air between them. She felt certain he was as reluctant to part as she was.
“Whenever I can,” she said, “I will invite you to come to me.”
He shook his head.
“Then, let’s leave it that you can come to me when you choose. I’m often gone, though, so it might be difficult for you to know when we can be together.”
“I am going to be truthful, Pentha. I prefer that you not send for me, and I will not come to you.”
She was unsure she’d heard him correctly.
He continued. “I care for you as I have cared only once before. And to see you now and then for a night will frustrate rather than gratify me.” He tilted his head and looked deeply into her eyes. A muscle along the edge of his jaw clenched. She thought he might reach out and touch her, but instead he said, “I don’t think that if I asked, you will come to live with me?”
He stopped and waited, motionless.
The request, the very idea, was … . She couldn’t think what to say.
The silence between them threatened to explode. He continued. “And I cannot come and live with you. It’s not ‘the Amazon way.’ So our situation is impossible.”
He stepped to her and wrapped her in that bear-hug of an embrace. His breath brushed her cheek. She felt secure there, in his embrace, as if her burdens had been reduced by half. But he stepped back and the full weight of her life settled again. “I care for you, Pentha,” he said. “And not in the Amazon way.”
He turned and strode off, shoulders straight.
“Damon,” she said. This was all wrong.
He did not look back.
She fought the urge to call out to him again. Instead she said softly, “If you change your mind, send word and I will have you come to me at any time.”
Finally, when it felt foolish to continue to stare after him, she led the horses into the compound and to the stable where Ino, Valor’s groom, quickly appeared, ready to serve. “See that they are unpacked and well cared for,” Pentha muttered out of sheer habit. I could take valor this minute and ride after Damon.
“My lady, you are to go at once to see Bremusa,” Ino said, her voice charged with excitement.
Pentha walked blindly toward the barracks, stopped in place. What does he mean? What does he find so wrong with our way?
Bremusa caught up to her. “The Kaska mounted a raid on Lockruos,” she said. “Word came half an hour ago. They fielded a surprisingly large force and have overwhelmed the local patrol. I sent a messenger to fetch you. Apparently you missed each other.”
A raid! She must focus. She must think. “Preparations to ride?” She resisted the urge to turn and look to see Damon again.
“Already under way. We can leave with the horses in perhaps another half an hour. The supply wagons will follow shortly.”
22
ON BOARD THE PROUD LION, ACHILLES LISTENED to the steady drumbeat of the oarmaster and the rhythmic rise, fall, and swish of forty oars in the calm sea. His fleet of fifty ships had finally reached Goat’s Head bay, Troy’s spacious main harbor. It lay opposite Tenedos.
Achilles had a brief vision of Derinoe struggling with him eight, or was it nine, years ago now, when he had carried her away from her home there. He pushed the unpleasant image away.
What he needed was good anchorage—and the bay looked already full to overflowing. Today he would settle his fleet. Within days the remainder of his camp—men, women, and what booty still had not been sent home—would arrive overland from the south.
Spring had come at last. This was the first week of April and the beginning of a new battle season. The High Council had agreed that this year the entire Achean contingent—the ships and all their men—would assemble at Goat’s Head. Along the shoreline he saw impressive signs of massive construction. The encampment was now a small town, filled with not only the soldiers and those craftsmen who serviced them, but many more women and camp followers.
The trench in front of the wall had been widened and deepened since his last visit. In preparation for this season, Agamemnon had directed that the wall be made twice as high and twice as thick. It loomed up from the beach now, a giant edifice of stone and earth and timber. A string of six wagons piled with massive timbers, presumably cut from Mount Ida, crawled along the shoreline road. In the far distance, behind a rise in the land, he could see the two southernmost white towers of Priam’s citadel.
This year they would take Troy. Its treasury and its location at the hub of the vital He
llespont trade routes would bring not only greater riches but a steady income. He could go home with enough wealth to secure his kingdom not only for himself, but also for his sons and their heirs.
Patroklos joined him at the bow. “Look at the size of that wall!” He swept a graceful hand across the panoply of anchored vessels, each carrying their king’s banner. “And that sight is astonishing. Not since we all rallied at Aulis, at the beginning so many years ago, has the entire force been together.”
Achilles’ anxiety about good anchorage hitched up a notch. Agamemnon alone had come to this campaign with a hundred ships. Menelaus had brought sixty from Sparta. Nestor from Pylos and Idomeneus from Crete had each mustered eighty ships, and few had been lost. Ajax and others had lesser numbers of ships and men, but the grand total came to over one thousand vessels. Still, Agamemnon had assured Achilles that Goat’s Head Bay would have room for all, in part because many ships had early on been pulled to shore and dismantled, awaiting reassembly for the final trip home.
Achilles’ mind returned to the wall, then to the nature of this exceptional gathering. He shook his head. “Agamemnon has decided to make an all-out effort. After all of this labor, all of this planning, he will feel no one can claim he didn’t make a supreme try. But my sense of things is that if we don’t take Troy this year, Agamemnon is going home, no matter what anyone else wants, thinks, or says.”
They passed the southern edge of the bay’s wide mouth. Frowning, Patroklos said, “Shouldn’t you turn the fleet in? Didn’t you say Agamemnon directed that we put in at the south end?”
“You’ve seen the south end. It’s more exposed to wind. It’s plagued more by submerged rock. I expect the north end is still open.”
“Isn’t Ajax assigned to the north?”
“I’ll wager Ajax hasn’t arrived yet. He’s very brave and very bold, but rather slow when it comes to thinking ahead. And my rule is, first to arrive gets the prize.”
Patroklos gave him that familiar, you’re-stirring-up-trouble-again, look.
Achilles laughed and slapped his cousin, his companion, on the shoulder. “When you want something, Patroklos, you really should have learned by now that you have to take it.”