The Hittite

by Ben Bova

  The noble warriors preferred to fight from their chariots, I saw, although here and there men had alighted and faced their opponents on the ground. Still the foot soldiers held back, skulking and squinting in the swirling clouds of dust, content to let the noblemen face each other singly. Were they waiting for a signal? Was there some tactic in this bewildering melee of individual combats? Or was it that the foot soldiers knew they could never face an armed nobleman and those deadly spears?

  Here two chariots clashed together, the spearman of one driving his point through the head of the other’s charioteer. There a pair of armored noblemen faced each other on foot, dueling and parrying with their long spears. One of them whirled suddenly and rammed the butt of his spear into the side of his opponent’s helmet. The man dropped to the ground and his enemy drove his spear through his unprotected neck. Blood spurted onto the thirsty ground.

  Instead of getting back into his chariot or stalking another enemy, the victorious warrior dropped to his knees and began unbuckling the slain man’s armor.

  “A rich prize,” Poletes cackled. “The sword alone should buy food and wine for a month, at least.”

  Now the foot soldiers came forward, on both sides, some to help strip the carcass, others to defend it. A comical tug-of-war started briefly but quickly turned into a serious fight with knives, axes, cudgels and hatchets. The armored nobleman made all the difference, though. He cut through the enemy foot soldiers with his long sword, hacking limbs and lives until the few still standing turned and ran. Then his men resumed stripping the corpse while the nobleman stood guard over them, as effectively out of the battle for the time being as if he himself had been slain.

  Many of the chariots were overturned or empty of their warriors by now. Armored men were fighting on foot with long spears or swords. I saw one nobleman pick up rocks and throw them, to good effect. Archers, many of them charioteers who fired from the protection of their cars’ leather-covered side paneling, began picking off unprotected footmen. I saw an armored warrior suddenly drop his spear and paw, howling, at an arrow sticking in his beefy shoulder. A chariot raced by and the warrior in it spitted the archer on his spear, lifting him completely out of his chariot and dragging him in the dust until his dead body wrenched free of the spear’s barbed point.

  All this took but a few minutes. There was no order to the battle, no plan, no tactics. It was nothing more than a huge, jumbled melee. The noble contestants seemed more interested in looting the bodies of the slain than defeating the enemy forces. It was more like a game than a war, a game that soaked the ground with blood and filled the air with screams of pain and rage.

  The one thing that stood out above all others was that to turn and attempt to flee was much more dangerous than facing the enemy and fighting. I saw a charioteer wheel his team around to get away from two other chariots converging on him. Someone threw a spear that caught him between the shoulder blades. His team ran wild, and while the warrior in the chariot tried to take the reins from the dead hands of his companion and get the horses under control, another spearman drove up and killed him with a thrust in the back.

  Foot soldiers who turned away from the fighting took arrows in the back or were cut down by chariot-mounted warriors who swung their swords like scythes.

  It was getting difficult to see, the dust was swirling so thickly. I coughed and blinked grit from my eyes. Then I heard a fresh trumpet blare and the roar of many men shouting in unison. The thunder of horses’ hooves shook the ground.

  Through the dust came three dozen chariots heading straight for the place where we stood atop the earthworks rampart.

  “Prince Hector!” shouted Poletes, his voice brittle with awe. “See how he slices through the Achaians!”

  Here was a man who understood battle tactics, I realized. Prince Hector had either regrouped his main chariot force or had held them back from the opening melee of the battle. Whichever, he was now driving them like the wedge of a spear point through the shocked Achaians, slaughtering left and right. Hector’s massive long spear was stained with blood halfway up its wooden shaft. He carried it lightly as a wand, spitting armored noblemen and leather-clad foot soldiers alike, driving relentlessly toward the rampart that protected the beach, the camp, the boats.

  For a few minutes the Achaians tried to fight back, but when Hector’s chariot broke past the ragged line of their chariots and headed straight for the gate at the rampart, the Achaian resistance crumbled. Noblemen and foot soldiers alike, chariots and infantry, they all ran screaming for the safety of the earthworks.

  Hector and his Trojan chariots wreaked bloody havoc among the panicked Achaians. With spears and swords and arrows they killed and killed and killed. Men ran hobbling, limping, bleeding toward us. Screams and groans filled the air.

  An Achaian chariot rushed bumping and rattling to the gate, riding past and even over fleeing footmen. I recognized the splendid armor of the squat, broad-shouldered warrior in it: Agamemnon, the High King.

  He did not look so splendid now. His plumed helmet was gone. His gold-inlaid armor was coated with dust. An arrow protruded from his right shoulder and blood streaked his arm.

  “We’re doomed!” he shrieked in a high girlish voice. “We’re doomed!”

  12

  The Achaians were racing for the safety of the rampart with the Trojan chariots in hot pursuit, closely followed by the Trojan footmen running pell-mell, brandishing swords and axes. Here and there a Trojan would stop for a moment to sling a stone at the fleeing Achaians or drop to one knee to fire an arrow.

  An arrow whizzed past me. Poletes ducked behind me for protection. I turned and saw my men edging back to where they had laid their spears and shields. We were alone along the length of the rampart’s top now; the slaves and thetes had already fled down into the camp. Even the overseer with his whip had vanished.

  A noisy struggle was taking place at the gate. It was a ramshackle affair, made of warped planks taken from some of the boats. It was not a hinged door but simply a wooden barricade that could be wedged into the opening in the earthworks. Some men were frantically trying to put the gate in place while others were struggling to hold them back and keep it open until the remainder of the fleeing Achaian chariots could wheel through. I saw that Hector and his chariots would reach the gate in a few moments. Once past it, I knew, the Trojans would slaughter everyone in the camp.

  “Stay here,” I said to Poletes, then called to my men, “Follow me!”

  Without waiting to see if they obeyed me I dodged among the lopsided stakes planted along the rampart’s crest, heading toward the gate. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a javelin hurtling toward me. It thudded into the ground at my feet; I stopped long enough to wrest it out of the ground, then started toward the gate again. Magro, Karsh and the others were a few paces behind me, spears in their hands, shields on their arms.

  Hector’s chariot was already pounding up the sandy ramp that cut across the trench in front of the rampart. There was no time for anything else so I leaped from the rampart’s crest onto the ramp, where the panicked Achaians were still struggling over their makeshift gate.

  I landed directly in front of Hector’s charging horses, naked to the waist, without shield or helmet. I yelled and, gripping the light javelin in both hands, pointed it at the horses’ eyes. Startled, they reared up, neighing.

  For an instant the world stopped, frozen as if in a painting on a vase. Behind me the Achaians were straining to put up the barricade that would keep the Trojans from invading their camp. Before me Hector’s team of four nut-brown horses reared high, the unshod hooves of their forelegs almost in my face. I stood crouched slightly, the javelin in both my hands, pointed at the horses.

  The horses shied away from me, their eyes bulging white with fear, twisting the chariot sideways along the pounded-earth ramp. I saw the warrior in the chariot standing tall and straight, one hand on the rail, the other raised above his head, holding a monstrously long blood-soaked sp
ear.

  Aimed at my chest.

  He was close enough so that I could see his face clearly, even with his helmet’s cheek flaps tied tightly under his bearded chin. I looked into the eyes of Hector, prince of Troy. Brown eyes they were, the color of rich farm soil, calm and deep. No anger, no battle lust. He was a cool and calculating warrior, a thinker among these hordes of wild, screaming brutes. He wore a small round shield buckled to his left arm instead of the massive body-length type most of the other nobles carried. On it was painted a flying heron, a strangely peaceful emblem in the midst of all this mayhem and gore.

  My men were jumping to the ramp now, shields before them and spears making a small hedgehog of points. Just as Hector cocked his arm to hurl his spear at me, an arrow from behind us caught his charioteer in the throat. Suddenly uncontrolled, the horses panicked and stumbled over each other on the narrow ramp. One of them started sliding along the steep edge of the trench. Whinnying with fear they backed and turned, tumbling the dead charioteer and Prince Hector both onto the sandy ground. Then they bolted off back down the ramp and toward the distant city, dragging the empty chariot with them.

  Hector scrambled to his feet, his massive spear still in his hand. More Trojans were rushing up the ramp on foot, their chariots useless because Hector’s panicked team had scattered the other teams.

  I glanced over my shoulder. My men had formed a solid line behind me, their spears forward. I stepped back and took my usual place on the right end of the line. I had no shield, but still I took my accustomed place.

  The barricade was up now and Achaian archers were firing through the slits between its planks while others stood atop the rampart, hurling stones and spears. Hector held up his little shield against the missiles and backed away. A few Trojan arrows came our way but did no hurt.

  The Trojans retreated, but only beyond the distance of a bowshot. There Hector told them to stand their ground.

  The morning’s battle was ended. The Achaians were penned in their camp behind the trench and rampart, with the sea at their backs. The Trojans held the corpse-strewn plain.

  Panting from exertion, sweat streaming down my bare torso, I banged my fist on the flimsy wooden gate and a trio of grimy-faced youths opened it far enough for me and my men to slip through.

  Poletes ran up to me. “Hittite, you must be a son of Ares! A mighty warrior to face Prince Hector!”

  I said nothing, but glanced back at the plain, where Trojans were already dragging away their dead. How many of the proud lords on both sides of this war were now lying out there, stripped of their splendid armor, their jeweled swords, their young lives? I saw birds circling high above in the clean blue sky. Not gulls: vultures.

  13

  Others came up and joined Poletes’ praise as my men and I stood just inside the gate in the hot noontide sun. They surrounded us, clapping our backs and shoulders, smiling, shouting. Someone offered us wooden bowls of wine.

  “You saved the camp!”

  “You stopped those horses as if you were Poseidon himself!”

  Even the crusty, hard-eyed overseer looked on me fondly. “That was not the action of a thes,” he said, eyeing me carefully. “Why are warriors working as laborers?”

  I replied grimly, “Ask your High King.”

  They edged away from us. Their smiles turned to worried glances. Only the overseer had courage enough to stand his ground and say, “Well, the High King should be pleased with you this day. And the gods, too.”

  Poletes stepped to my side. “Come, Hittite. I’ll find you a good fire and hot food.”

  I let the old storyteller lead us away from the gate, deeper into the camp, while we pulled on our shirts and leather jerkins.

  “I knew you were no ordinary men,” he said as we made our way through the scattered huts and tents. “Not someone with your bearing. This must be a nobleman, I told myself. A nobleman, at the very least.”

  “Only a soldier of the Hatti,” I replied.

  “Pah! Don’t be so modest.” Poletes chattered and yammered, telling me how my deeds looked to his eyes, reciting the day’s carnage as if he was trying to set it firmly in his memory for future recall. Every group of men we passed offered us a share of their midday meal. The women in the camp smiled at us. Some were bold enough to come up to us and offer freshly broiled meats and onions on skewers.

  Poletes shooed the women away. “Tend to your masters’ hungers,” he snapped. “Bind their wounds and pour healing ointments over them. Feed them and give them wine and bat your cow-eyes at them.”

  I smiled inwardly and wondered how much my men appreciated Poletes’ “protection.”

  To me, the old storyteller said, “Women cause all the trouble in the world. Be careful of them.”

  “Are these women slaves or thetes?” I asked him.

  “There are no women thetes, Hittite. It’s unheard of! A woman, working for wages? Unheard of!”

  “Not even prostitutes?”

  “Ah! Yes, of course. But that’s a different matter. And in the cities there are temple prostitutes, protected by Aphrodite. But they are not thetes. It’s not the same thing at all.”

  “Then the women here in camp …”

  “Slaves. Captives. Daughters and wives of slain enemies, captured in the sack of towns and farms.”

  My wife was a slave of the High King’s. How can I get her away from him? I asked myself. Are my sons alive? Where are they?

  We came to a group of men sitting around one of the larger cook fires, down close beside the black-tarred boats. They looked up and made room for us. Up on the boat nearest us a large canvas of blue and white stripes had been draped to form a tent. A helmeted guard stood on the deck before it, with a well-groomed dog by his side. I stared at the carved and painted figurehead on the boat’s prow, a grinning dolphin’s face against a deep blue background.

  “The camp of Odysseos,” Poletes explained to me in a low voice as we sat and were offered generous bowls of roasted meat and goblets of honeyed wine. “These are Ithacans.”

  He poured a few drops of wine on the ground before drinking, and made me do the same. “Reverence the gods, Hittite,” Poletes instructed me, surprised that neither I nor my men knew the custom.

  The men around the fire praised me for my daring at the barricade, then fell to wondering which particular god had inspired me to such heroic action. The favorites were Poseidon and Ares, although Athene was a close runner-up and even Zeus himself was mentioned now and then. They soon fell to arguing passionately among themselves without bothering to ask me or my men about it.

  I was happy to let them quarrel. I listened, and as they argued I learned much about this war.

  They had been campaigning in the region each summer for many years. Achilles, Menalaos, Agamemnon and the other warrior kings had been ravaging the coastal lands, burning towns and taking captives, until finally they had worked up the courage—and the forces—to besiege Troy itself.

  But without Achilles, their fiercest fighter, the men thought their prospects were dim. Apparently Agamemnon had awarded Achilles a young woman captive and then had changed his mind and taken her for himself. This insult was more than the haughty young Achilles could endure, even from the High King.

  “The joke of it all,” said one of the men, tossing a well-gnawed lamb joint to the dogs hovering beyond our circle, “is that Achilles prefers his friend Patrokles to any woman.”

  They all nodded and muttered agreement. The strain between Achilles and Agamemnon was not over a sexual partner; it was a matter of honor and stubborn pride. On both sides, as far as I could see.

  As we ate and talked the skies darkened and thunder rumbled from inland.

  “Father Zeus speaks from Mount Ida,” said Poletes.

  One of the foot soldiers, his leather jacket stained with spatters of grease and blood, grinned up at the cloudy sky. “Maybe Zeus will give us the afternoon off.”

  “Can’t fight in the rain,” one of the others a
greed.

  Sure enough, within minutes it began pelting down. We scattered for what ever shelter we could find. Poletes and I hunkered down in the lee of Odysseos’ boat. Through the driving rain I saw my men scurrying for the shelter of the tents scattered around Odysseos’ boats.

  “Now the great lords will arrange a truce, so that the women and slaves can go out and recover the bodies of our dead. To night their bodies will be burned and a barrow raised over their charred bones.” He sighed. “That’s how the rampart began, as a barrow to cover the remains of the slain heroes.”

  I sat and watched the rain pouring down, turning the beach into a quagmire, dotting the frothing sea with splashes. The gusting wind drove gray sheets of rain across the bay, and it got so dark and misty that I could not see the headland. It was chill and miserable and there was nothing to do except sit like dumb animals and wait for the sun to return.

  I crouched as close as I could to the boat’s hull, smelling the sharp tang of the pitch they had smeared over the planks to keep the vessel watertight. My wife is among the slaves in Agamemnon’s camp, I knew. Are my sons with her? Are they still living?

  Suddenly I realized that a man was standing in front of me. I looked up and saw a sturdy, thick-torsoed man with a grizzled dark beard and a surly look on his face. He wore a wolf’s pelt draped over his head and shoulders, dripping with the pounding rain. Knee-length tunic, a short sword buckled at his hip. Shins and calves muddied. Ham-sized fists planted on his hips.

  “You’re the Hittite?” he shouted over the driving rain.

  I got to my feet and saw that I stood several fingers taller than he. Still, he did not look like a man to be taken lightly.

  “I am Lukka,” I replied. “My men are—”

  “Come with me,” he snapped, and started to turn away.