by Ben Bova
“They’re well behaved,” I told him before he could work up the nerve to say anything about them.
A look of understanding dawned on his face. “Your sons?”
“Yes. Treat them well.”
“Of course, sir. Of course. My own daughters will watch over them.”
Then he glanced at Helen, who had kept the cowl of her robe pulled up over her golden hair. “And your wife, sir?”
“She will require a room of her own,” I said.
He nodded and smiled knowingly. “Next to yours.”
I smiled back. “Of course.”
Gesturing to our two miserable, creaky wagons, the innkeeper said grandly, “Your goods will be perfectly safe here, sir, even if they were made of solid gold. My sons protect this inn and no thief will touch what is yours.”
I wondered how certain of that he would have been if he’d known that inside the boxes we lifted out of the wagons there really were treasures of gold and jewels from gutted Troy. I let his four sons handle our baggage, but I watched them closely as they stacked the boxes in the inn’s largest room. I chose to sleep in that room myself, together with blind Poletes and the boys. Helen disappeared into the next room, but almost immediately a pro cession of younger women paraded in, four of them tugging a large round wooden tub, others bearing soaps and powders and what ever else women use in their baths.
I frowned with worry over that. A stranger with an entourage that includes a blind old man and a golden-haired beauty. How long will it take that news to spread throughout the city? How long before it reaches the ears of Menalaos or one his men, even if they are half a world away from here?
But there were more immediate problems to deal with. A bony, sallow-faced girl presented herself and offered to watch my sons. I told her not to let them go beyond the inn’s courtyard. After endless days on the road, Lukkawi and Uhri were eager to explore this new and fascinating set of buildings and their yard. They ran off happily with the girl.
The city had whore houses, of course, and my men were eager to sample their wares. Once we got all our baggage stacked in my room I gave Magro permission to go.
“They’ll be back in the morning,” he told me.
“You go with them,” I said. “Try to keep them together.”
His heavy brows rose. “You’ll need someone to guard our goods.”
“I’ll stand guard. You go with the men and try to keep them out of trouble.”
Magro couldn’t hide the grin that broke across his face. “I’ll bring them back in the morning.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Enjoy the city. You’ve earned a night’s entertainment.”
“And you?”
Gesturing to the boxes stacked against the wall, I said, “I’ll guard our treasure.”
“Alone?”
“I have the innkeeper’s ferocious sons.” Two of the grown sons were big and burly, the other two slight and wiry, as if they had been born of a different mother. They hardly seemed dangerous to us, not after the fighting we had seen, but they were probably adequate to ward off sneak thieves.
“And I am here also,” said Poletes, from the bed where he was sitting. “Even without ears I can hear better than a bat. In the dark of night I will be a better guard than you with your two eyes.”
If you don’t snore, I thought.
Helen, in the next room, had commandeered two of the innkeeper’s young daughters to serve her. I heard them chattering and giggling as they hauled buckets of steaming water up the creaking stairs and poured them into the wooden tub for her bath. None of them knew who we were, of course. Or at least, I hoped that none of them had pieced together the significance of a golden-haired beauty traveling with a gaggle of Hatti soldiers and a blind man. As long as no one from Troy has reached Ephesus before us, I reasoned, we were safe.
Still, I was fretful. I paced my room as I munched on the dried figs and tough strips of dried goat meat that the innkeeper had sent for our early dinner.
I stepped out onto the balcony and saw Lukkawi and Uhri playing tag together while the innkeeper’s daughter sat on the ground by the stables, elbows on her knees, watching them. Their laughter lifted my heart. I realized that there is little in the world as happy as the laughter of children.
“Can you see the city?” Poletes asked, still sitting on our bed.
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see it. “Yes. Right outside our balcony, beyond the window.”
“Tell me, what is it like?” He got to his feet, his arms stretched out before him, and stepped uncertainly toward the sound of my voice.
I took his arm and led him out to the balcony. The street on which the inn fronted ran downhill toward the wharves at the water’s edge. Poletes could hear the sounds from the street, but he begged me to describe what I saw. I told him of the temples, the inns, the busy streets thronged with people in colorful robes, the chariots and wagons rolling by, the bustling port, the billowing sails out in the harbor, the splendid houses up on the hills. Ephesus was a prosperous city, peaceful and seemingly secure.
“There must be an agora in the heart of the city, a marketplace,” Poletes said, cackling with anticipation. “Tomorrow one of the men can take me there and I will tell the story of the fall of Troy, of Achilles’ pride and Agamemnon’s cruelty, of the burning of the great city and the slaughter of its heroes. The people will love it!”
“No,” I said as I came in off the balcony. “We can’t let these people know who we are. It’s too dangerous.”
He turned his blind eyes toward me. The scars left by the burns seemed to glower at me accusingly.
“But I’m a storyteller! I have the greatest story anyone’s ever heard, here in my head.” He tapped his temple, just above the ragged slit where his ear had been. “I can make my fortune telling this story!”
“Not here,” I said softly. “And not now.”
“But Master Lukka, I can stop being a burden to you! I could earn my own way! I could become famous!”
“Whoever heard of a storyteller becoming famous?” I growled.
“You’ll be able to travel faster without me,” Poletes insisted. “At least let me—”
“Not while she’s with us,” I said.
He snorted angrily. “That woman has caused more agony than any mortal woman ever born.”
“Perhaps so. But until I see her safely accepted in Egypt, where she can be protected, you’ll tell no tales about Troy.”
Poletes grumbled and mumbled as he groped his way back to the bed. I stayed with him and steered him clear of the stacked boxes of loot.
As the old storyteller plopped down on the dusty feather mattress I heard a scratching at the door. Picking up my sword from the table by the bed, I held it by the scabbard and went to the door, opening it a crack.
It was one of the innkeeper’s daughters, a husky, dimpled girl with mistrustful dark eyes.
She curtsied clumsily and said, “The lady asks if you will come to her chamber.”
I looked up and down the hallway. It was empty, although anyone might be hiding behind the closed doors of the other rooms.
“Tell her I’ll be there in a few moments,” I said.
Shutting the door, I went to the bed and sat on it beside Poletes.
“You needn’t say anything,” he told me. “You’re going to her. She’ll snare you in her web of allurements.”
“You have a poet’s way of expression,” I said.
“Don’t try to flatter me.”
Ignoring his petulance, I asked, “Can you guard our goods until I return?”
He grunted and turned this way and that on the soft bedding and finally admitted, “I suppose so.”
“You’ll yell loudly if anyone tries to enter this room?”
“I’ll wake the whole inn.”
“Can you bar the door behind me and find your way back to the bed again?”
“What difference if I stumble and break my neck? You’ll be with your lady lov
e.”
I had to laugh. “She’s not my lady love. I’ll probably be with her only a few moments. I have no intention—”
“Oh, no, not at all!” He hooted. “Just make sure that you don’t bellow like a mating bull. I’m going to try to get some sleep.”
Feeling like a schoolboy sneaking out to play, I went to the door and bade Poletes a pleasant nap.
“I sleep very lightly, you know,” he said.
Whether he meant to reassure me that no thief would be able to sneak in to rob us, or to warn me to be quiet in Helen’s room, next door, I could not tell. Perhaps he meant both.
I belted my sword to my hip and stepped out of the room, closing the door softly behind me. I waited until I heard the bar behind it slide into place. The hallway was still empty, and I could see no dark corners or niches where an enemy could lurk in ambush. Nothing but the worn, tiled floor, the plastered walls, and six wooden doors of other rooms. My men had taken three of them, I knew, but they were off in the city enjoying themselves. On the other side of the hall was a railing of split logs that overlooked the central courtyard of the inn and its packed dirt floor.
My boys were still playing in the courtyard; I could hear their shouts and laughter.
Very well then, I told myself. And I went to Helen’s door.
12
Feeling more than a little uncertain, I scratched at the smooth wooden planks of Helen’s door.
“Who is there?” came her muffled voice.
“Lukka,” I said, feeling slightly foolish.
“You may enter.”
I pushed the door open. Helen stood in the center of the shabby room, resplendent as the sun. She had put on the same robes and jewels she had worn that first time I had seen her alone, in her chamber in Troy. I hadn’t realized until this moment that she had brought them with her all this way. She’d probably hidden them under Apet’s black cloak that night when she asked me to take her away from Menalaos. In Troy she had looked incredibly beautiful. Here, in this rough inn with its crudely plastered walls and uncurtained windows she seemed like a goddess come to Earth.
I closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it, almost weak with the beauty of her. No one else was in the room; she had dismissed the girls who’d been waiting on her.
“Lukka,” she said softly, “you’ve saved my life.”
Somehow I managed to say, “You’re not safe yet, my lady. We’re still a long way from Egypt.”
“Menalaos must be back in Sparta by now, telling everyone how he killed his unfaithful wife with his own hands and burned her body as a sacrifice to his gods.”
“Or he could be following our trail, trying to find you.”
She shook her head hard enough to make her golden curls tumble about her slim shoulders. “Don’t say that, Lukka! You’re frightening me.”
I stepped toward her. “That’s the last thing in the world I want to do, my lady.”
“My name is Helen.”
My voice caught in my throat, but I managed to half-whisper, “Helen.”
She stood before me, warm, alive, breathing, her clear blue eyes searching mine.
“I owe you my life, Lukka,” she said.
Like a fool, I replied, “Apet told me about Prince Hector.”
Helen sighed. “Hector.”
“She told me that you loved him.”
“I still love his memory. But he’s dead now, in Hades with the rest of the House of Ilios.” She slid her arms around my neck. “And we’re alive.”
I looked down into her eyes and grasped her slim waist in both my hands. Our lips met.
And then I heard my two boys shouting to one another out in the hall. They pounded on the barred door to my room, calling out, “Daddy! Daddy!”
I twitched with surprise.
“Daddy! Open the door!”
Swallowing hard, I released Helen. “They’ll get frightened,” I said, apologetically.
A strange expression came over her face. She appeared puzzled, then angry, then amused—all in the span of a heartbeat.
Helen broke into laughter. “Go, tend to your little boys,” she said, giggling at me. “I can see that my charms are nothing compared to a father’s love for his sons.”
I felt my face reddening. “My lady … they’re only children.”
“Go, Lukka,” said Helen, her laughter tinkling like silver bells. “Do your fatherly duty.”
Shamefaced, I opened her door and stepped out into the hall just as Poletes opened the door to our room. The boys turned, saw me, and ran into my arms. And I was happy to hold them—even with Helen standing alone in her room, laughing. At me.
13
I hardly slept at all that night. Poletes snored beside me on the featherbed, Lukkawi and Uhri slept peacefully on the cots that the innkeeper’s sons had set up for them. I knew that Helen was on the other side of the wall that separated our rooms. Was she sleeping? Dreaming?
Strange thoughts filled my mind. I desired her, of course I did. What man wouldn’t? But did she truly desire me, or was she simply using her charms to keep me bound to her? She knew I could leave her here in Ephesus if I chose to. Leave her alone, defenseless, friendless and helpless in a strange land.
Do I love her? I asked myself. The idea struck me like a thunderbolt. Love her? A princess of Troy? The Queen of Sparta? Then an even wilder question rose before me: does Helen love me?
I lay there on the sagging feather mattress and wondered what love truly is. Women are for men’s plea sure. A wife takes care of a man’s home, bears him children, rears his family. But love? I never knew Aniti well enough to love her, nor could she have loved me. But Helen … Helen was different. What is love? I’ve put my life at risk, the lives of my men and my sons as well, for her. Is that love? Could she possibly love me? I knew it was impossible. Yet I lay there in the darkness, wondering.
Time and again I thought about tiptoeing out to her room. Time and again I could not work up the courage to do it. Yes, courage. I’d faced armed soldiery and never turned my back. I’d followed the emperor’s orders even when they sent me far from my home. But facing Helen was a different matter.
A thousand thoughts raced through my mind. I saw Aniti’s face, sad-eyed, watching me from the gray mists of Hades. I had failed her, and now Helen had offered herself to me. The most beautiful woman in the world. What would happen if I bedded her? We still had months of travel ahead of us, through strange and unknown territory. How could I maintain discipline if we were lovers? The men would want women of their own, surely, and our little troop would bog down into a caravan of women. And my sons. It was difficult enough traveling with them. If the men took women we’d soon enough have pregnancies to deal with. And then babies.
Then there was Poletes. He wanted to stay in Ephesus, but I couldn’t risk allowing him to tell the tale of Troy to these people. They would soon realize that the Hatti soldiers in their midst were harboring Helen, Queen of Sparta, princess of Troy.
Helen. Was she really offering herself to me? A common soldier? A man with two young sons clinging to him? If I told her that I loved her, would she be pleased? Or would she scorn me? Then I realized that she must be lonely. After the mortal peril she’d been through, after seeing the man she loved spitted on Achilles’ spear, after watching Troy and its entire royal family destroyed, she was alone in the world, without a love, without a friend, without even the servant she had known since childhood.
She didn’t love me, of that I was certain. She couldn’t. It was impossible. But she needed me, and she knew that the best way to keep me loyal to her was through her body. Poletes had been right: she’ll snare me in her web of allurements. Or try to.
I watched the nearly full moon sink behind the darkened temple roofs before I closed my eyes in troubled sleep. It seemed merely a moment later when I felt Poletes get out of the bed, coughing and groaning.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m old
.” And he reached under the bed for the chamber pot.
Morning came bright and clear, the sky an almost cloudless blue. We were all up early and trooped down to the inn’s tavern for a breakfast of yogurt and honey, followed by hot barley cakes. Magro and the men came dragging in, bleary-eyed but grinning and joking to one another about their night’s adventures. They joined us for breakfast and ate heartily. Helen stayed in her room and had one of the innkeeper’s daughters bring breakfast to her.
I sent Magro and two of the men back into the city to trade our worn horses and donkeys for fresh mounts.
“These old swaybacks won’t fetch much,” Magro said, as the men walked the animals out of the stable. I couldn’t tell which looked the worse for wear, the animals or my men.
“Probably not,” I agreed, nodding, “but get what you can for them and buy new ones.” I handed him a small sack that held some of the baubles from Troy.
As Magro and the two others left, with the string of animals plodding slowly behind them, the innkeeper came bustling up to me.
“My lord,” he said grandly, “may I ask how do you intend to settle your account?”
He’d seen me hand the sack to Magro and now he wanted his own payoff.
I clasped him by the shoulder and walked him back toward the tavern. “I have little coin,” I explained, “but this should cover our debt to you, don’t you think?” And I pulled from the purse on my belt one of the jeweled rings I’d been carrying.
His eyes flashed wide momentarily, but he quickly covered his delight. Holding the ring up to the sunlight, where its emeralds flashed brightly, he couldn’t help but smile.
“This will do very nicely, my lord,” he said. “It will fetch a fine price at the agora.”
I thought for a moment about going down to the marketplace and converting a few more of our baubles into coin.
“And how long do you plan to stay with us, sir?” asked the landlord.
