“I see you have heard, King,” Tudhaliyas said. “My warriors have taken the Scaean Gate and are already starting to dismantle it. They will unseal all the great gates and take them apart one by one. For a while Troy will be a truly open city.”
Xander held his breath as he waited for the explosion he was sure would come from Agamemnon. But it did not come.
“We discussed misunderstanding earlier,” Tudhaliyas went on smoothly. “I do not want Troy.
“Before I left our capital, Hattusas, with my army, I consulted our…soothsayers, I think you call them. One told me a tale of the founding of this city. He said that when the father of Troy, the demigod Scamander, first voyaged to these lands from the far west, he was met on the beach by the sun god. They broke bread together, and the sun god advised Scamander that his people should settle wherever they were attacked by earth-born enemies under the cover of darkness. Scamander wondered at the god’s words, but that night when they camped on this very hilltop, a horde of famished field mice invaded their tents and nibbled the leather bowstrings and breastplate straps and all their war gear. Scamander vowed his people would remain here, and he built a temple to the sun god.
“But the gods the Trojans brought from the western lands were not our gods. Your sun god is called Apollo, also the Lord of the Silver Bow and the Destroyer. He is a god of might and battle. Our god of the sun is a healer called the mouse god. When our children are sick, they are given a mouse dipped in honey to eat as a tribute to the healing god.
“Over the years, as the city grew, the mouse god’s temple became neglected. The Trojans built greater temples, decorated with gold, copper and ivory, to Zeus and Athene and to Hermes. When the great walls were built around the city, the mouse god’s temple was outside them. When the small temple collapsed during an earthquake, it was not rebuilt, and eventually grass grew over it, and, with perfect irony, field mice ran in its halls.
“Now the last Trojans have left and taken their cruel and capricious gods with them. You, who worship the same gods of the west, will follow them. Perhaps the mouse god will stand on the beach again and watch you go, wondering why you all came here.”
Tudhaliyas stood up, and his voice darkened. “I proclaim that this city will be destroyed,” he ordered. “It will be taken apart stone by stone; then the very stones themselves will be smashed. This city of darkness will vanish from the land.”
As the emperor told his tale, more heavily armed Hittite soldiers moved quietly into the megaron. Agamemnon looked around, and Xander could see that his face was pale and his eyes wild as he watched his ambition come to nothing as the heartbeats passed.
Idomeneos stepped forward. “I care not for your stories, nor for Troy and its fate,” he rasped at the emperor. “I came only for the fabled riches of Priam. That much is due to us. You cannot deprive us of our plunder!”
“And you are?” the emperor asked scornfully.
“Idomeneos, king of Kretos,” said the man, flushing with anger.
The emperor waved his hand dismissively. “Go, little kings; seek out your plunder. But carry it back to your ships quickly. Any galley still in the Bay of Herakles come the dawn will be taken, and its crews dismembered.”
He turned and gave a brief order in his own tongue, then stalked out of the megaron. His retinue followed him, but the rest of the Hittite warriors remained.
Agamemnon seemed smaller now, shrunken by the Hittite’s contempt. He glared around the chamber, and his eyes, full of unfocused anger, settled on Xander.
“You!” he cried. “Healer! Take me to Priam’s treasury!”
Xander stood frozen for a moment. Then Meriones gave him a gentle push, and he said, “Yes, king.”
He knew where the treasury was. It was not a secret. Xander led the kings down a corridor to the rear of the megaron, then down a long flight of steps. They walked along a wide corridor deep below the ground. Above them on either side of the tunnel, carved shapes of stone stared down at them, mythical beasts with teeth and claws, their eyes flickering blindly in the torchlight.
At the end the corridor opened out into a round chamber. Xander and Meriones, the three kings, and their guards crowded in. There was a strong animal smell, Xander noticed. In front of them was a high door lavishly decorated with bronze, horn, and ivory. In the days of Priam the door had been guarded by six Eagles. Now there were no guards, and only a simple oak and bronze bar stopped intruders.
Kleitos, the king’s aide, ran forward and raised the locking bar. He pulled open the door, and Agamemnon stepped forward. The smell wafting out was pungent, and Xander’s nose wrinkled.
The Battle King walked into the darkness of Priam’s treasury, followed by Idomeneos and Menelaus, and then they all stopped. There was a gasp, then a volley of curses. Xander squeezed around the side of the door to see what was happening.
A dozen horses stood blinking at them in the light of the torches. They shifted about nervously, stepping in the piles of horse manure that covered the floor, and the acrid odor from the chamber grew even stronger.
Agamemnon cursed and grabbed a torch from a soldier. He pushed his way among the animals, looking for treasure. He searched frantically around the low square chamber, followed by Idomeneos and Menelaus. It was empty except for the horses and their droppings. Only in the far corner did they find two dusty goblets and a large wooden chest, its lid flung open. Agamemnon reached in and drew out three copper rings, then flung them onto the stone floor. Fury in his voice, he turned to the other kings.
“Helikaon!” he raged. “The Burner has stolen Priam’s treasure from under our noses!”
Menelaus frowned. “But Brother, that is impossible,” he offered nervously. “How could he get it out of the city?”
“He and his crew must have lowered it down the north wall in the night,” Agamemnon guessed. “That was why the rope was cut! To stop anyone following him and stealing it back. They will be far away on the Xanthos by now.”
“It is the fastest ship on the Great Green,” Menelaus added miserably. “We will never catch it.”
“We will if we know where Helikaon is going!” Agamemnon cried. Turning to Xander, he grabbed him by his tunic.
“Tell us, boy,” he snarled into his face. “The Hittites will not save your wounded friends. They will not care if they live or die! Tell us where Helikaon is going, or I will have them taken apart one by one in front of you!”
Xander looked around anxiously, but he could not see his champion Meriones, only the faces of the three kings staring greedily at him.
Please forgive me, Golden One, he thought.
“They are going to Thera,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE FLIGHT FROM THERA
Andromache was watching clouds of birds in the sky over Thera, wondering what kind they were. They were small and black, and there were thousands of them, swirling, diving, climbing, splitting into two clouds, then three, then four, then coming together again in smooth graceful flight. All the crewmen of the Xanthos were watching, and the ship was drifting in the warm morning breeze. Suddenly, as if under orders, the birds formed a single flock and headed away from the island. For a heartbeat they were over the ship, myriads of them blocking the light. Crewmen ducked instinctively. Then the birds had passed, racing for the north, and they soon vanished from sight.
The oarsmen picked up the beat again, and the Xanthos glided on toward the Blessed Isle. Andromache sat back on the wooden bench at the mast and peered down into the lower deck, where the boys were playing happily. She smiled to herself. For the first few days of their voyage she had watched them all the time, frightened that one would fall overboard. But she had found that on the Xanthos the boys had more than sixty fathers watching out for them. The oarsmen, most of whom had children of their own, treated them as they would their own sons, playing games with them and telling them stories of the sea. Sometimes they would sit the two boys on the rowing benches and let them pretend to row th
e great galley.
Astyanax and Dex had thrived during their time at sea. They were both nut-brown from being in the sun all day, and Andromache was sure they both had grown taller in those few days. Dex was still watchful, a little shy and slower to laugh than his brother. Astyanax was bold and sometimes reckless, and whenever he was on the open upper deck, Andromache watched him with the anxious eyes of mother love.
Since leaving Troy, Helikaon had set a fast pace toward Thera. His intention was to stop briefly at the Blessed Isle to take Kassandra on board, then sail on to Ithaka, where Kalliades and Skorpios would leave the ship. Then the Xanthos would make the long voyage, perhaps for the last time, to the Seven Hills in time for winter.
Once at sea and safely out of Trojan waters, they had no reason to race to Thera, yet Andromache felt a feeling of urgency all the time. She could not understand it. They no longer had to fear the Mykene, and the weather was mild and still, but she suffered a constant sense of subdued panic, as though they were late for something. Helikaon felt it, too, he admitted, and they believed that the rest of the crew did, although it never was discussed.
Andromache stood and walked down the aisle to the foredeck, where the two warriors were resting. She liked the fair-haired rider Skorpios. He was unlike any soldier she ever had met. She would talk to him in the long idle evenings spent on rocky shores and sandy beaches. The young man knew the names of birds and the small creatures in the rock pools. He had his own names for the star pictures in the night sky and would tell her tales of them. He had bought a set of pipes from a trader on Lesbos and sometimes would play soft laments as the sun set. He told her stories of his childhood, sad ones about his brutal father and careworn mother and happier ones about his brothers and sisters and the daily life in their village. He planned to leave the Xanthos at Ithaka, but she hoped he would go with them to the Seven Hills.
Kalliades looked up as she approached, and she gave him a warm smile. Rested by the voyage, his leg at last had started to heal. Each day she had dressed his wound, until this day she had thrown away the spent healing plant Xander had placed on it.
A sailor shouted, “Dolphins!” and she looked to where he pointed. They often saw a dolphin or two on their travels, and she wondered at the excitement in his voice. Then she realized he was pointing to not one dolphin or two but to hundreds of them, passing the ship to starboard, their sleek gray backs rising and falling as they surged toward the north.
“Doffizz, doffizz!” she heard one of the boys cry, and they ran up on deck and raced to the rail. She saw two crewmen catch them and hold them securely as they craned their necks to watch the creatures pass.
“Unusual,” murmured Kalliades, who had stood up to watch. He sat down again, but Skorpios continued gazing at the sea until long after the dolphins had disappeared. When he sat down, his face was flushed with excitement like the boys’.
“I have never seen dolphins before,” he explained. “In fact, I have never been to sea before, except to cross the Hellespont.”
“Then you have never seen Thera, the Blessed Isle,” she told him. “It is unique.”
“How so?” he asked, peering at the island looming ahead of them. “Because no men are allowed there?”
“Partly,” she told him. “But it is fashioned like no other island. It is in the shape of a ring, with just one gap where the ships sail in. In the center is a wide round harbor, which is very deep. No ships can anchor there, for the stone anchors will not reach the bottom. In the center of the harbor is a small black isle called the Burned Isle.”
Soon they were passing into the harbor, and Kalliades, who was watching ahead, commented, “Not such a small island!”
Andromache looked around and gasped. The Burned Isle, black and gray like a pile of coals, was twice the size she remembered. It now filled more of the harbor, and the Xanthos had to skirt it to reach the Theran beach. From its summit she could see thick black smoke arising and trailing off toward the east. She looked back to the aft deck, where Helikaon and Oniacus were talking urgently, pointing and gazing at the growing isle with wonder.
Young Praxos shouted, “Ship ahead, lord!”
Andromache could see a galley drawn up on the far beach. She could make out nothing of it at that distance, but within moments sharp-eyed Praxos cried, “It is the Bloodhawk, Golden One!”
Odysseus! What good fortune! Andromache smiled. But at that instant she heard the rumble of an earthquake beneath them. The sea churned, and she saw a landslip on the Burned Isle go crashing into the water. The waves it created lashed the Xanthos, and the ship rocked back and forth. Andromache looked to the children, but they were both safely on the lower deck. She gazed up at the isle again and shivered.
Within a short time the Xanthos had reached the beach, and crewmen were shinnying down ropes, ready to draw the ship up alongside the Bloodhawk. Helikaon slid down a rope, and a ladder was thrown over the side for Andromache. When she reached the beach, Odysseus was waiting, one arm around Helikaon’s shoulders. They both were grinning at her, and she smiled back. With a touch of sadness she saw that the Ithakan king’s once-red hair was now silver.
He took her hand and kissed it. “By Zeus, goddess, it does my old heart good to see you both safe. I heard Troy was taken and overrun, but there was no word of survivors. I’ll wager you have a stirring tale to tell me!”
“Indeed we have, Odysseus, but it is a tale of sadness, too,” Helikaon replied, gazing fondly at his old friend. “What are you doing here? We thought you would be safe in the arms of Penelope by now.”
“Would that I were. I have a son I have not yet seen. But I came to rescue Kassandra. With Troy taken, Mykene scum have no reason to respect the sanctity of Thera. But the place seems abandoned.” He looked around. “We arrived at sunset last night, and we have seen no one. There is always a priestess to greet arriving ships.” He shrugged. “I was debating defying the demigod and climbing to the Great Horse myself. Then we saw the Xanthos.”
At his words a chill passed through Andromache, and the feeling of urgency returned full force. It was as much as she could do not to go running up the steep cliff path.
To Helikaon she said swiftly, “I will go find Kassandra and bring her to the ship.”
“If she is still here,” her lover replied, gazing up and frowning at the top of the island, where the horse’s head could just be seen.
“I know she is here,” she told him, “though I do not know why she has not come to greet us.” She saw his expression and guessed what he was thinking. “You must not anger the Minotaur by climbing to the temple. I will go and find her.”
Helikaon glanced at the sky, then took her hand. “If you have not returned by noon, I will come get you, and no demigods or monsters will prevent me.”
“And I will come with him,” Odysseus added. “There’s something dangerous about this island now, and it’s not the danger of violent men.” He shivered in the sunlight and nodded toward the Burned Isle. “And tell me that island is growing, and it is not just a delusion of old age.”
Andromache replied, “They say the Burned Isle only rose from the sea a hundred years ago. And yes, you are right. It is growing very fast, and I fear it is a bad omen. I will make haste.”
With a smile for Helikaon, she turned and strode across the beach of black sand, then started up the cliff path, her old rope-soled sandals carrying her surely. Halfway up she stopped and looked down on the men and the ships below. Her gaze traveled to the Burned Isle, and she was shocked to see it was nearly as high as the cliffs of the ring island. Smoke was rising from the summit, and the air was thick with it. On her arms and shoulders was a light sprinkling of gray dust. She hurried on, dread and foreboding pushing her along with whips of fire.
As she reached the top of the cliff, she paused again, gazing up at the Great Horse. The colossal white temple seemed to sway above her, and she wondered if it was she who was swaying. Then, with a deep rumble that made her teeth ache, another
earthquake rippled across the isle. Andromache threw herself down and clung to the rocky ground, fearing it would tip and throw her back down the cliffs. She heard a whoosh of wings and a raucous screeching. Looking behind her, she saw a huge flock of gulls flying past the edge of the cliffs, heading south.
“All the creatures are leaving the island,” said a voice. “Even the birds of the air and the fish of the sea.”
Andromache scrambled to her feet. Walking toward her slowly from the Great Horse temple was the First Priestess. Iphigenia saw the surprise on her face and chuckled.
“You thought me long dead, Andromache. Well, I will make old bones soon, but my time has not yet come.”
“I am glad to see it,” Andromache replied, and it was true. Iphigenia looked older than the world, but the gleam in her eye was as intelligent and calculating as ever.
Andromache gazed around. “Are the women all leaving the island, too? It seems deserted.”
Iphigenia frowned. “When the earthquakes started at the time of the Feast of Artemis, Kassandra convinced all the girls the island would be destroyed. With her dreams and her visions she can be very persuasive, your sister. One by one they left despite all my efforts to stop them. The last one, little Melissa, departed two days ago.” She gave a barking cough that Andromache recognized as a laugh. “She even took the donkeys, saying she did not want them to suffer when the end came. A ship full of donkeys.” She shook her head. “Foolish girl,” she said tenderly.
“How is Kassandra?”
Iphigenia looked at her with compassion, and Andromache wondered why she ever had thought the old woman unfeeling.
“She is dying, Andromache. Her visions…they injure her mind and give her hideous fits. Each fit takes something vital from her, and they have been getting more frequent. She is very frail, but the visions go on relentlessly.”
“Where is she? I must help her.”
“She is in the temple. Walk with me, my dear.”
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