by Ben Bova
As the sun went down the pyres blazed across the darkening beach, sending up smoke to the heavens that the Achaians thought was pleasing to their gods. Before long the priests were covered with blood and the camp stank of entrails and excrement.
2
I reached Agamemnon’s boats. It seemed that the whole camp was gathering there. The spoils of Troy had been piled into a gigantic heap, gleaming and glittering in the fires of the pyres. Hundreds of captives were now being marched toward the altars that had been built by the pyres, guarded by solemn-faced warriors.
Agamemnon was sitting on a beautifully carved chair that had been pillaged from the city, up atop a makeshift platform that served as a rough sort of throne. He had already started to divide the spoils, so much for each chieftain, starting with white-bearded old Nestor.
The Achaian nobles were crowding around, greed and envy shining in their eyes. I searched for Odysseos and saw him standing off to one side of Agamemnon’s impromptu throne.
As I made my way toward the King of Ithaca, Agamemnon parceled out bronze armor and weapons, gold ornaments, beautiful urns and vases, porphyry and onyx, glittering jewels; kitchen implements of copper, iron tripods and cooking pots; robes, silks, blankets, tapestries—and women, young boys and girls. I thought of my sons. Were they safe? Would the High King hand them over to one of his heroes?
Half of everything Agamemnon kept for himself: the High King’s prerogative. But as I pushed past some of the chieftains and nobles I heard them complain about his tightfisted ways.
“He’s got the generosity of a dung beetle,” grumbled one grizzled old warrior.
“He knows we did the hardest fighting, up on the wall,” said an Ithacan. “And what do we get for it? Less than his wine steward.”
“Those women should have been ours, I tell you. The fat king is too greedy.”
“What can you do? He takes what he wants and we get his leavings.”
I thought that even Odysseos looked less than pleased as I neared him. The pyres lit his darkly bearded face with flickering lurid red.
I went around behind the assembled kings. A ragged line of guards in armor stood there, leaning on their spears. The Ithacans recognized me and let me through. I came up behind Odysseos and called softly, “My lord Odysseos.”
He twitched with surprise and turned to face me. “Hittite, what are you doing here?”
“My wife has been placed among the sacrificial victims.”
He frowned at me. “I can’t get Agamemnon’s attention now. Later, after the spoils have been meted out.”
“But that will be too late! They’ve already started slaughtering the human sacrifices.”
Odysseos glanced at Agamemnon, glorying in his conquest atop his makeshift throne. Then he pulled off the copper band from his wrist. It was studded with glittering jewels. Handing it to me, he said, “Find a priest, show him this and tell him that the King of Ithaca commands him to release your wife.”
It was as much as he would do, I realized. I thanked him and sprinted away to search for a priest. In the back of my mind I wondered if my sons were truly safe, but I knew that Aniti was in imminent danger.
It was maddening. The boys must be nearby, I thought. But I had no time to search for them. I pushed through the men crowded around Agamemnon and the pile of spoils, looking for a priest. They were all gathered at the altars that had been set up next to the three pyres, where guards were dragging old men and boys to their deaths.
I raced to the nearest altar, so close to the blazing pyre that the heat of the flames felt like an oven. A lad of ten or eleven was struggling madly as a pair of guards hauled him twisting and screaming to the waist-high stone they were using as an altar. Even with his hands tied behind his back and his ankles hobbled the boy put up enough of a fight for one of the guards to club him with the hilt of his sword. Then they hefted him up, moaning and half-conscious, and draped him across the altar. Three priests stood there, their robes and beards so soaked in blood that they looked black and evil in the flaming light of the pyre.
The boy’s eyes opened wide as the oldest priest raised his stone knife. He started to screech but the priest sliced the boy’s throat open in a shower of blood that silenced him forever.
There were several other priests, younger men, standing by the altar watching. Their robes were also stiff and black with victims’ blood. They looked tired from the work they had been doing. I clutched at the first one I could reach.
“What?” He seemed startled.
Showing him Odysseos’ bejeweled wristband, I said, “The King of Ithaca commands the release of one of the women. She was put in among the victims by mistake.”
He stared down at the jeweled copper band, then looked up into my face. “You’re no Ithacan.”
“I serve Odysseos,” I said, gesturing to the armband I wore.
The priest was young enough so that his beard was still dark. But his eyes were shrewd, suspicious.
“How do I know that you didn’t steal these trinkets?”
I slid my sword from its sheath. “I am a Hittite. My sword is iron. I serve the King of Ithaca.”
“I’m only a junior priest, fit only to slaughter animals. I can’t—”
“You’ll do what I ask or I’ll make a sacrifice of you.”
Strangely, he smiled at me. “So this sacrificial victim you want to save is a woman, eh?”
“My wife.”
That made his dark brows go up. “Your wife?”
“Come with me,” I said, clutching his shoulder once again. “I’ll explain on the way.”
Dragging the priest by his arm, I hurried across the sand to the crowd of victims that were now being herded slowly by their guards toward the sacrificial altars. I quickly told the priest my story, not caring if he believed me or not. The victims shuffled reluctantly toward their doom, some of the women wailing and moaning, but most of them silent and hollow-eyed, beyond hope. The guards prodded them along with their spears.
I couldn’t find Patros. The whole mass of victims was moving like a reluctant herd of cattle toward the blazing pyres and the blood-soaked altars. I could smell the iron tang of blood in the air, and the stink of fear: sweat and piss.
“You can’t pass through!” said one of the guards as we approached them. He waved his spear angrily.
“The Hittite woman,” I shouted at him. “She’s to be released.”
“What Hittite woman?” the guard shouted back, frowning. Three of his companions came edging toward us.
“My wife, dammit!” I snapped. “I’ve got to find her before she’s killed!”
The guard glanced uneasily at his cohorts, then turned back to me. “Our orders are to feed these people to the altars.”
The priest spoke up. “If one of the prisoners is among the victims by mistake …” He shrugged his shoulders, unwilling to say more.
“We can’t let prisoners go,” the guard said. “It’s hard enough keeping them moving. I’ve had to clout some of ’em.”
“I serve Odysseos, the King of Ithaca,” I said, thrusting the wristband under his nose. “He sent me to save my wife.”
He goggled at the band. “King Odysseos? Really?”
“Really. Now let me through. I’ve got to find her!”
He glanced at the other spearmen again, then looked questioningly at the priest.
“The gods don’t need a victim who’s offered by mistake,” the priest said.
“I guess not,” said the guard. He seemed more confused than unwilling. Finally he told me, “All right, go ahead and get her. If you can find her in this crowd.”
“I’ll find her,” I said, pushing past him and plunging into the throng of wailing victims.
I was growing frantic myself. Tugging the young priest along with me, I bulled through the throng of women and children, searching for Aniti.
The soldiers kept urging the crowd forward, toward the altars and blazing pyres. They prodded the victims with the
butts of their spears, angry at any who was too slow to suit them. A few of them jabbed at the women with their spear points, laughing cruelly even when they drew blood.
One youngster—no more than twelve or thirteen, I thought—stumbled and fell to her knees. A guard kicked her, then pulled her by her hair, screeching, to her feet.
“Keep moving!” he demanded. “Keep moving.”
Up at the altars the priests were working in shifts, one man slitting throats until his arms grew tired, then another stepping into his place.
Aniti! I kept telling myself. She’s got to be in here someplace!
Where are you? I called silently as I elbowed my way through the sobbing, terrified women and children.
And another fear clutched at my heart. I dreaded the thought that I might find my own sons among the victims. The vision of their being tossed into the flames made me shake with anger.
Finally I made it to the head of the crowd, to the blood-crusted flat stone they were using as an altar. The women screamed and struggled as guards seized them, twisting their arms behind their backs and forcing them to bend over the reeking altar stone. Four priests stood wearily by, while a fifth slashed throats again and again with his ritual stone knife. The victims’ screams turned into gurgling death rattles, then the guards dragged the bodies off to the blazing pyres.
The priests looked tired, their faces set in weary resignation. The one who was doing the slaughtering straightened up and handed the knife to another, then stepped back, rubbing his aching arms. The killing went on, one after another, as mechanical as a blacksmith hammering out a sword blade.
The gods know I’ve killed men and never thought twice about it. But that was in battle, facing men who were armed and doing their best to kill me. What I saw now was nothing more than slaughter, butchery, gods or no gods.
I stepped up to the nearest priest, a shaggy-bearded old man, still dragging the young priest in my grip. The old man went wide-eyed.
“How dare you … ?”
“I seek my wife,” I said, and I shook the young priest’s arm.
“He serves Odysseos,” the young priest said, his voice high and shaking. “He says his wife was put in with the victims by mistake.”
The older priest scowled at me. “The gods—”
“She’s a Hittite!” I interrupted him. “She doesn’t belong here. She’s tall, with light brown hair. Her name—”
“A Hittite woman?” The priest searched my eyes.
“My wife!”
He shook his head, then turned toward the blazing pyre and the oily black smoke rising thickly from it. “She is one with the gods, Hittite.”
3
I stared at the black smoke rising into the darkening sky.
“Had we known …” the old priest began. But he saw the look on my face and lapsed into silence.
My young priest looked horrified. But he swallowed hard and managed to say, “The gods have taken her.”
The gods. Fat Agamemnon and these brutish warriors. Despoilers of Troy, killers and rapists. And I had helped them. I had helped them to kill my own wife. I know I should have felt hot, surging anger: rage, a killing fury. But instead I felt nothing. Nothing. I was numb. It was as if I had been plunged into the icy waters of the sea, sinking to the bottom. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. I wanted to scream. I knew I should wreak vengeance on these slaughtering barbarians. But I simply stood there, paralyzed, as cold as a block of stone.
I had caused this. I had helped them to kill Aniti. She had depended on me to save her and I had failed.
Then I thought about my sons. I had to find them before these Achaian butchers took them, too.
Abruptly I turned from the priests and their blood-caked altar and headed back toward Agamemnon’s boats. My sons would be there, if they lived.
If they lived.
I went from boat to boat, searching for them. A few remaining serving women huddled next to the curving hulls, on the side away from the fires, hoping that the black shadows would hide them from roving drunken Achaians, trembling and wide-eyed at the slaughter going on. Many were sobbing, hiding their faces in their hands. More than one had clapped her hands over her ears, trying to blot out the screams of the sacrificial victims.
A few young boys sat among them, equally terrified. Lads of ten or so, they seemed. Not my sons. Not my boys.
They all jumped with surprise at the sight of me, edging away at the sight of an armed warrior. I went from boat to boat, but my sons were nowhere in sight.
Then one of the older women, her white hair hanging limply past her shoulders, called to me: “Hittite? You are the Hittite?”
She was short and round; her wrinkled face looked like a crushed piece of parchment in the flickering red light of the fires. An aged grandmother, I thought. She belonged in a farm house with her children around her, not here on this blood-soaked beach before the ruins of Troy.
I stepped to her. “I am the Hittite,” I said.
“Aniti said you would come,” she said, in a voice cracked with age. “When they … when they took her she told me to … to protect the boys … until you came for them.”
“Where are they?”
She turned and walked slowly down the length of the boat. Near the steering oar, barely a dozen paces from the lapping water of the sea, two little boys were sleeping soundly beneath a single threadbare blanket.
Asleep. They’ve slept through it all, I realized. All the blood and fire, all the carousing and screaming. They looked so calm, so relaxed. Their hair was tousled, their eyes softly closed. The smaller of them had his thumb in his mouth.
I sank to my knees beside them. They’re alive. They’re unhurt. Thank the gods, they’re alive.
And then I thought of Aniti. Their mother. My wife. I couldn’t protect her, couldn’t save her. The last moments of her life must have been terrible. Being dragged away from her babies. Herded in with the other victims. Pushed closer and closer to the blazing pyres. Then forced down on the altar. The last thing she must have seen was that damnable stone knife.
I cried. The tears leaked from my eyes unbidden. I hardly knew Aniti, yet I felt a sadness, a sorrow beyond words. She didn’t deserve this fate. I should have done better for her. I had failed her.
But she had not failed her babies. Even as they dragged her off to the sacrificial fires, she had left the boys with this doughty old grandmother and told her that I would come for them.
How long I knelt there sobbing I don’t know. But at last I wiped my eyes and focused on my sons. I had failed to protect their mother, but I would die before I’d let any harm fall on them.
I rose to my feet. The old woman stood in the shadows, watching me.
“Thank you, Grandmother,” I said. Taking Odysseos’ bracelet from my wrist, I handed it to her.
“No!” she gasped. “I couldn’t.”
“Take it,” I said. “It’s not a gift. It’s payment for protecting my sons.”
Reluctantly, with trembling hands, she reached for the bracelet. Even in the shadow of the black boat’s hull its gems glittered.
She helped me lift the two boys into my arms. Lighter than my shield, they stirred sleepily but neither of them opened his eyes. Carrying the two of them, I strode past the boats of Agamemnon, determined to leave this camp, this beach, this accursed band of barbarian cutthroats.
And go where? I didn’t know, not then. Nor did I care. All I wanted at that moment was to take my sons away from Troy and the victorious Achaians.
Away from Helen, a voice within me whispered. And I loathed myself for the thought.
As I came to the Ithacan boats, where my men were happily dividing their spoils, Magro saw me approaching. He scrambled to his feet and ran to me.
“You’ve got them!”
“I’ve got them.”
“And your wife?”
I looked toward the flames still crackling at the pyres. My voice caught in my throat, but at last I was able to croak out,
“I was too late.”
He shook his head. “Well, there are other women.”
I said nothing. Magro helped me to gently lay the boys on a blanket and cover them.
As we straightened up he said, “You’d better look after your servant.”
“Poletes?”
“He swilled down a flagon of wine and now he’s off telling stories that could get him in trouble.”
“Stories?”
“He’s mocking Agamemnon and his generosity.”
I felt my brows knit. “Isn’t everyone?”
“Yes, but he’s also talking about Queen Clytemnestra, back in Mycenae. If the High King hears about what he’s saying …” Magro ran a finger across his throat.
4
“Where is the old windbag?” I asked.
Magro waved in the direction away from the pyres. “He tottered off in that direction. I warned him to keep his mouth shut, but he’s full of wine.”
I pulled in a deep breath. “I’ll find him. Watch over my sons.”
Magro glanced down at the sleeping boys. “They’ll make good soldiers,” he said, grinning.
“What?”
“If they can sleep through this night, they’ll be able to sleep anywhere. That’s an important gift for a soldier.”
“You just make certain no one disturbs them,” I said.
Magro tapped his fist to his chest. I turned and started along the beach once more, searching for Poletes. I passed a stream of Achaians toting away their loot, many of them disgruntled with the share of booty Agamemnon had parceled out to them. The fire from the pyres was slowly dying, but off in the distance I could see the city still glowing red with flames behind its high walls.
I found Poletes sitting on the sand by a small campfire, practically under the nose of one of Menalaos’ boats, surrounded by a growing mob of squatting, standing, grinning, laughing Achaians. None of them were of the nobility, as far as I could see. But off in the shadows I noticed white-bearded Nestor standing with his skinny arms folded across his chest, frowning in Poletes’ direction.
