The Hittite

by Ben Bova

  A pair of young warriors slouched by the gate, their spears on the ground, gnawing on haunches of roasted lamb. They waved lazily at us as we passed. Helen stayed inside the first wagon, tucked down among the bags of provisions with my two sons and Poletes.

  We forded the shallow river and turned south, where the land rose slightly toward distant bare brown hills. I took over the wagon and let Magro take the horses. The rest of the men rode easily, glad to be mounted instead of afoot, as usual.

  As we climbed the rutted trail I turned back for one last look at the ruin of Troy. The ground rumbled. Our horses snorted and neighed, prancing nervously. Even the donkeys pulling the carts twitched their long ears and hurried their pace unbidden.

  “Poseidon speaks,” said Poletes from the depths of the wagon, his voice weak but clear. “The earth will shake soon from his wrath. He will finish the task of bringing down the walls of Troy.”

  The old storyteller was predicting an earthquake. A big one. All the more reason to get as far away as possible.

  Then Hartu, riding at the rear of our little group, pointed and shouted, “Lukka! Riders!”

  I looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a cloud of dust. Riders indeed, I thought. Probably sent by Menalaos to search for his missing wife.

  I snapped the reins, urging the donkeys onward. Thus we left Troy.

  9

  As I had feared, our journey southward was neither easy nor peaceful.

  The whole world seemed to be in conflict. We trekked slowly down the hilly coastline, through regions that the Hatti called Assuwa and Seha. Once these people had been vassals of the emperor; now they were on their own, without the armed might of the Hatti to protect them, without the emperor’s law to bring order to their lives.

  It seemed that every city, every village, every farm house was in arms. Bands of marauders prowled the countryside, some of them former Hatti army units just as we had been, most of them merely gangs of brigands. We fought almost every day. Men died over a brace of chickens, or even an egg. We lost a few men in these skirmishes and gained a few from bands that begged to join us. I never accepted anyone who was not a former Hatti soldier, a man who understood discipline and knew how to take orders. Our little band grew sometimes to a dozen men, never fewer than six.

  I kept anxiously searching our rear, every day, for signs of Menalaos’ pursuit. Helen tried to convince me that her former husband would be glad to be rid of her, but I thought otherwise. There were times when the hairs on the back of my head stood up. Yet, when I turned to search, I could find no one following us.

  I did not sleep with Helen. I hardly touched her. She traveled as one of our group, watching after my sons when she wasn’t tending to Poletes. She never complained of the hardships, the bloodletting, the pain. She made her own bed on the ground out of blankets and slept slightly separated from the men. But always closer to me than anyone else. She wore no jewels and no longer painted her face. Her clothes were plain and rough, fit for traveling rather than display. It wasn’t easy, but I was determined to be her guardian, not her lover; too many complications and jealousies lay in that direction. If my coolness surprised her, she gave no hint of it.

  Yet at night as I lay on the cold, hard ground I cursed myself for a fool. I knew that if I wanted her she would yield to me. What choice would she have? But I couldn’t take her that way. No matter the urges of my body, I could not force myself on her. Each night I felt more miserable, more stupid. And each night I dreamed of Helen, although sometimes her face changed to Aniti’s.

  Poletes slowly grew stronger, and began to learn how to feel his way through his blindness. He was very good with my sons, amusing them for hours with his endless trove of stories about gods and heroes, kings and fools.

  The boys were a constant source of joy for me. And worry. Too innocent to understand the dangers we faced, they played rough-and-tumble games whenever we camped. On the march they ran alongside our carts or begged rides on the horses, then returned to their wagon with Poletes or Helen. But even then they kept themselves busy turning empty flour sacks into tents, broken tools into magic swords. It never ceased to amaze me how little boys could turn almost anything into a toy.

  I tried to keep them out of sight when we were in a village or town. And I insisted that Helen stay well hidden among the sacks and bundles in the wagons. She grew impatient, of course, as women will.

  “But no one knows of me here,” she said as we approached the city of Ti-smurna. “We’re hundreds of leagues from Troy.”

  I was sitting on the wagon’s highboard beside her, working the donkeys’ reins. Behind us, among the bales and baggage, Poletes was spinning a tale about Herakles to my two eagerly listening boys. The men were riding the horses up ahead of us and the other wagon was trundling along in the rear, with the string of extra horses ambling along behind.

  I shook my head. “How do you know that Menalaos or some other Achaians haven’t come to this city in search of you?”

  She was wearing a simple shift, and the long weeks on the road had thinned her face somewhat. Her flawless skin was coated with dust, but her glorious hair shone in the sunlight like a torrent of gold.

  Helen laughed at my fears. “We left Ilios before Menalaos realized I was gone, Lukka. He couldn’t have gotten here ahead of us.”

  “Couriers ride fast horses,” I said.

  “We would have seen them on the road long before this,” she countered.

  “Ships travel faster still.”

  That stopped her. She knew that Menalaos had dozens of boats to send in search of her, if he wished. Even though we had traveled along the coast road most of the way, the road cut well inland in several places. A boat could have passed and we would never have seen it.

  But Helen replied, “He’d never send one of his precious boats to seek me. He’d never admit I’d gotten away from him once again. No, Lukka, he’s telling everyone he killed me and burned my body. He’s not trying to find me.”

  I nodded wearily. It was no use arguing with her. She was determined to believe what she wanted to believe. But I still felt that uneasy prickling sensation that warned me we were being followed.

  Ti-smurna was a sizable city, the largest in the land of the Arzawa, who had been vassals of the Hatti emperor until the empire dissolved in civil war. I decided to bypass it. The men grumbled; they had been looking forward to finding a decent inn and sleeping under a roof for a change. With women. Helen became angry at my decision.

  “You’re being foolish!” she snapped at me. “You’re frightened of shadows.”

  I said nothing. A man doesn’t argue with an angry woman. I let her rant. Poletes talked to her that evening, while we camped within sight of the city’s walls. I don’t know what he said to her, but she calmed down.

  Lukkawi and Uhri goggled at the walls of Ti-smurna, and the towers of the citadel that rose above them. To them, it was a magic city of princes and warriors. To me, it was a well-defended city, but hardly impregnable. I could see where a determined army with proper siege equipment could break through those walls and take the city. I wondered what kind of an army they had.

  I sent Harta and one of the new men, a Phrygian named Drakos who spoke the local tongue well, into the city to see what they could learn. They returned a day later to report there was no knowledge of the fall of Troy or of Achaians seeking Helen. Yet I worried about being pursued. We skirted Ti-smurna and moved on, southward, still following the coast road.

  The rainy season began, and although it turned the roads into quagmires of slick, sticky mud and made us miserable and cold, it also stopped most of the bands of brigands from their murderous marauding. Most of them, at least. We still had to fight our way through a trap in the hills a few weeks south of Ti-smurna.

  I myself was nearly killed by a farmer who thought we were after his wife and daughters. Stinking and filthy, the farmer had hidden himself in his miserable hovel of a barn—nothing more than a low cave that he
had put a gate to—and rammed a pitchfork in my back when I went in to pick out a pair of lambs. It was food we were after, not women. We had paid the farmer’s fat, ugly wife with a bauble from the loot of Troy, but the man had concealed himself when he had first caught sight of us, expecting us to rape his women and burn what ever we could not carry away with us.

  He lunged at my back, murder in his frightened, cowardly eyes. Fortunately, Magro was close enough to knock his arm away partially. The pitchfork’s tines caught in my jerkin and rasped along my ribs; I felt them like a sawtoothed knife ripping into me.

  Magro clouted him to his knees while I sank against the dank wall of the cave, hot blood trickling down my side. The farmer expected us to kill him by inches, and Magro had drawn his sword, ready to hack his head off. But I stopped him. We left him quaking and kneeling in the dung of his animals.

  Back at the wagons, Magro helped me take off my leather jerkin and the linen tunic beneath it. The tunic was soaked with blood and badly ripped.

  “It didn’t go deep,” Magro said.

  I felt weak, sweaty. “Deep enough to suit me,” I muttered, lowering myself to the ground.

  Tiwa came up with clean rags and a bucket of water. Helen walked slowly toward me, her eyes wide, her lips trembling.

  “You’re hurt,” she gasped.

  “It’s not serious,” I said, trying to sound brave. “I’ve had worse.”

  She knelt at my side and took the bucket and rags from Tiwa. Without a word she dipped them in the water and began to gently clean my wounds. It hurt, but I said nothing. The men gathered around and watched until Helen tied two of the rags around my rib cage with her own hands.

  “The bleeding will stop soon,” Magro muttered. Then he and the other men turned away, leaving Helen and me alone.

  “Thank you,” I said to her, my voice half choking in my throat.

  She nodded wordlessly, then got to her feet and walked back to the wagon. My two little boys were standing there by the donkeys, staring at me. I waved them over to me.

  I could see the fear in their eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” I said to them. “Just a scratch.”

  Lukkawi made a tiny smile. To his brother he said bravely, “No one can kill our father.”

  I wished that was true.

  10

  The rains poured down day after day out of sullen gray skies. We were wet to our skins, our cloaks and clothing soaked, our bags of provisions sodden. The donkeys trudged through the mud slowly, grudgingly. The horses were spattered with mud up to their bellies. We were miserable, cold, our tempers fraying. Some nights it rained so hard we couldn’t even start a cook fire.

  With the rain came fever. I felt hot and cold at the same time, shivering and sweating. That farmer’s dung-coated pitchfork probably carried the evil demons that clamped the fever on me. I grew too weak to drive a wagon, too dizzy even to mount a horse. I lay in the wagon among the soggy, rain-soaked bundles, alongside Poletes.

  Helen tended me. She made a tent from horse blankets that kept most of the rain off us. I lay under it, helpless as a baby.

  I had crazy dreams: about Aniti, but sometimes she was Helen, and then my two boys were grown men fighting on the battlements of Troy against me. Gods and goddesses appeared in my dreams, and always the goddesses had Helen’s face.

  Despite all the rigors of our trek she was still beautiful. Even in my fever-weakened condition I could see that she didn’t need paints or gowns or jewelry. Even with her face smudged with mud and her hair tied up and tucked under the cowl of a long dirty cloak, nothing could hide those wide blue eyes, those sensuous lips, that flawless skin.

  Slowly the fever left me, until one day I felt strong enough to take over the reins of the wagon once again. Helen smiled brightly at me.

  “It’s a lovely day,” she said. And indeed it was. The clouds were breaking up and warm sunshine made the land glow.

  Lukkawi and Uhri scrambled up to sit on either side of me and I let them take turns holding the reins for a few moments. It made them happy.

  Poletes was gaining strength, too, and even some of his old quizzical spirit. He rode in our creaking cart and pestered whoever was driving to describe to him everything he saw, every leaf and rock and cloud, in detail.

  In truth, the rainy season was behind us at last. The days grew warm, with plentiful sunshine. The nights were balmy and filled with breezes that set the trees to sighing. I felt strong enough to ride a horse again and retook my place at the head of our little column.

  Magro nosed his horse up beside me. “You’re leaving Helen in the wagon?” A crooked smile snaked across his bearded face.

  “She’s with Poletes and my boys,” I said, knowing where his sense of humor was leading and wishing to avoid it.

  But Magro said, “Maybe I’ll go back and drive the wagon for a while. Show her my skills at handling stubborn asses.”

  “Drakon is handling the wagon.”

  “He’s just a lad,” said Magro. “Why, if Helen should smile at him he wouldn’t know what to do about it.”

  “And you would, eh?”

  With a grin and a shrug Magro replied, “I’ve had some experience with women.”

  “With a sword in one hand,” I said.

  “No, no—willing women! Back at the camp by Troy I had to fight them off.”

  I laughed. “I can’t picture you fighting off willing women.”

  “I didn’t say I won every battle.”

  More seriously, I told Magro, “Listen, old friend. She’s a noblewoman. She was the Queen of Sparta. And a princess of Troy. She’s got no interest in a battle-scarred soldier.”

  Magro nodded, a bit ruefully. “Maybe so. But she took good care of you when the fever had you down.”

  “That’s because I’m the leader of this troop that’s protecting her. She’s got no passion for any of us. Her interest is strictly self-protection.”

  Magro said nothing, but the expression on his face showed clearly that he didn’t believe me.

  It was two days later that we first spied Ephesus.

  We had spent the morning trudging tiredly uphill through a sudden springtime thunderstorm, wet and cold and aching. I was driving the wagon again and Helen sat beside me, wrapped in a royal blue hooded cloak. I had sent two of the men ahead as scouts, and detailed two more to trail behind us, a rear guard to warn of bandits skulking in our rear—or Achaians trying to catch up with us. I still could not believe that Menalaos had given up Helen so easily.

  As we came to the top of the hill the rain slackened away as suddenly as it had started. The sun came out; its warmth felt good on my shoulders. One of our scouts was waiting on the edge of the muddy road.

  “The city.” He pointed.

  Ephesus lay below us in a pool of golden sunlight that had broken through the scudding gray clouds. The city glittered like a beacon of warmth and comfort, white marble gleaming in the sunshine.

  We all seemed to gain strength from the sight, and made our way down the winding road from the hills to the seaport city of Ephesus.

  Magro rode up beside our wagon. “There’re no walls around the city!” he marveled.

  “Ephesus is dedicated to Artemis the Healer,” said Helen. “Men from every part of the world come here to be cured of their ailments. A sacred spring has waters with magical curative powers.”

  I couldn’t help giving her a skeptical look.

  “It’s true,” said Poletes, groping his way up to the front of the wagon to stand between Helen and me. “Everyone knows the truth of it. There are no walls around the city. None are needed. No army has ever tried to take it or sack it. Everyone knows that the city is dedicated to the goddess Artemis and her healing arts; not even the most barbarian king would dare to attack it, lest he and his entire army would fall to Artemis’ invisible arrows, which bring plague and painful death.”

  That reminded me. “Artemis is a moon goddess, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Helen
said, nodding. “And the sister of Apollo.”

  “Then she must have favored Troy in the war.”

  “I suppose she did.”

  “It didn’t do her much good, though,” Magro said, with a chuckle. “Did it?” His horse nodded, as if in agreement.

  “But she’ll be angry with us,” I said.

  Helen’s eyes widened beneath her blue hood. “Then we must find her temple as soon as we enter the city and make a sacrifice to placate her.”

  “What do we have to offer for a sacrifice?” I asked.

  Magro jabbed a finger at the donkeys wearily pulling our wagon. “This team of asses. They’re about half dead anyway.”

  “Don’t make light of it,” Poletes insisted, his voice stronger than his frail body. “The gods hear your words, and they will punish mockery.”

  “I will offer my best ring,” Helen said. “It is made of pure gold and set with rubies.”

  “You could buy a whole caravan of donkeys with that,” Magro said.

  “Then it should placate Artemis very nicely,” Helen replied, in a tone that said the matter was settled.

  11

  What ever its patron deity, Ephesus was civilization. Even the streets were paved with marble. Stately temples with fluted white marble columns were centers of healing as well as worship. The city was well accustomed to hosting visitors, and there were plenty of inns available. We chose the first one we came to, at the edge of the city. It was almost empty at this time of the year, just after the ending of the rainy season. Wealthier travelers preferred to be in the heart of the city or down by the docks where the boats came in.

  The innkeeper was a lean, angular man with a totally bald head, a scrawny fringe of a beard, shrewd eyes, and at least a dozen sons and daughters who worked at various jobs around the inn. He was happy enough to have the ten of us as his guests, although he looked hard at my two little boys.