It must have been close to midnight when at last I was brought before Hector. His tent was barely large enough for himself and a servant. A pair of armed nobleman stood outside by the fire in bronze breastplates and fine helmets. Insects buzzed and darted in the firelight. No slaves or women were in sight. Hector himself stood at the entrance flap to his tent. I recognized those steady, grave brown eyes.
He was tall for these people, nearly my own height. Hector wore no armor, no badge of rank, merely a soft clean tunic belted at the waist, with an ornamental dagger hanging from the leather belt. He had no need to impress anyone with his grandeur. He possessed that calm inner strength that needs no outward decorations.
In the flickering light of the campfire he studied me for a moment. His face was handsome, intelligent, though there were lines of weariness around his eyes, furrows across his broad brow. Despite the fullness of his rich brown beard I saw that his cheeks were becoming hollow. The strain of war was taking its toll on him.
“You are the man at the gate,” he said. His words were measured, neither surprise nor anger in them.
“I am, my lord.”
He looked me over carefully. “Your name?”
“Lukka.”
“From where?”
“From far to the east, the land of the Hatti.”
His eyes widened. “You are a Hittite?”
“Yes, my lord.”
He puzzled over that for a few moments, brow knitted. Then he asked, “What brings you to the plain of Ilios? Why are you fighting for the Achaians?”
I said nothing. Odysseos had commanded me to give Hector his message and nothing more.
“Well?” Hector demanded. “Troy has always been loyal to the Hittite empire. We appealed to the emperor for help. Is this his answer? Has the emperor sent his army to fight against us?”
“I cannot say, my lord. I am commanded by King Odysseos to give you High King Agamemnon’s offer to end the war.”
“I’ve heard Agamemnon’s offers before,” Hector growled.
“But my lord—”
“Why are you fighting against us?” Hector demanded, his voice iron hard.
“My lord, I arrived at the Achaian camp last night, with eleven spearmen.”
“Hittite warriors.”
“Soldiers, yes. We had never seen Troy before, we didn’t know that you were at war. I was atop the rampart when the day’s battle started. Suddenly, in the midst of the fighting, I acted on impulse. I don’t know what made me jump in front of your chariot like that. It all happened in the flash of a moment.”
Hector looked into my eyes, as if to judge the truth of my words. “Battle frenzy,” he murmured. “A god took control of your spirit, Hittite, and inspired you to deeds no mortal could accomplish unaided. It has happened to me more than once.”
I was happy to take that path. “Yes, perhaps that is what happened to me.”
“Have no doubt of it. Ares or Athene seized your spirit and filled you with battle frenzy. You could have challenged Achilles himself in such a state.”
He turned and stepped inside the tent, beckoning me to follow him. The two noblemen standing guard stirred momentarily, then returned to their positions beside the fire. Inside the tent there was only a rough cot of stretched ropes and a small table with a single chair bearing a bowl of fruit and a flagon of wine with two silver cups flanking it. Hector took an apple and gestured for me to help myself.
He sat and poured wine into both cups.
“Sit, Hittite. Sit and drink.”
The quality of Trojan wine was far superior to that of the Achaians.
“You carry the wand of a herald and say that you are here as an emissary of Agamemnon.” Hector leaned back tiredly in the creaking chair.
“I bring an offer of peace, my lord.”
“We have heard such offers before. Is there anything new in what Agamemnon proposes?”
I wondered if Agamemnon knew what Odysseos was offering, but decided that it was not my station to get involved in such matters.
“The High King offers to leave Troy and return to the lands of the Achaians if Troy will return Helen to her rightful husband.”
Hector nodded wearily. “And?”
“Nothing else, my lord.”
“Nothing?” He was suddenly alert. “No demand for ransom, or for the return of Helen’s so-called fortune?”
“No, my lord.”
Sitting up straighter in his chair, Hector ran a hand across his beard. “So now that we have him pinned against the sea, Agamemnon is willing to end the war if we return Helen to his brother.”
“That is what I have been instructed to tell you, my lord.”
Hector thought for several long moments, then began to speak slowly. “When he had us penned inside our city walls Agamemnon was not so generous. Now that we have the upper hand, he wants to run away.”
“With Helen returned to her husband, my lord,” I reminded him.
“Helen. She’s nothing but an excuse to make war against us. If we let Agamemnon go, he’ll be back next year with more fire and death.”
There was nothing I could say to that.
“No,” Hector muttered, more to himself than to me. “We have the upper hand now. We can drive them into the sea once and for all.”
My mind immediately painted a picture of the Achaian boats burning, Trojans killing with their long spears, slaves and women put to the sword in the orgy of looting and raping that follows battle. My sons, my wife, torn to pieces.
To Hector I said, as calmly as I could, “My lord, the Achaians believe your success in yesterday’s fighting was helped greatly by the fact that Achilles did not enter the battle. He will not remain on the sidelines forever.”
“One man,” Hector countered.
“The best warrior among the Achaians,” I pointed out. “And his Myrmidones are a formidable fighting unit, I am told.”
Hector fixed me with those steady brown eyes again. “No, Hittite. It was you who stopped me at the gate. If not for you, those black boats would be smoldering piles of ashes this very night.”
That staggered me.
“I hold no resentment against you. You were in the thrall of a god, and no man can undo what the gods bring forth.”
“Perhaps the gods will favor the Achaians tomorrow.”
“Perhaps.”
“Then what am I to tell the High King, my lord?”
Hector slowly rose to his feet. “That is not my decision to make. I command the army, but my father is still king in Troy. He and his council must consider your offer.”
I stood up, too.
“Polydamas,” Hector called, “conduct this herald to the king. Aeneas, spread the word that we will not attack until King Priam has considered the latest peace offer from Agamemnon.”
And suddenly I understood the subtlety of Odysseos. The Trojans will not attack the Achaian camp as long as I am dickering with their king. That will give Agamemnon and all the others a day’s respite from battle, at least. A chance to rest, bind their wounds, perhaps even convince Achilles to come back to the fight. Odysseos had sent an expendable hero, me—a man that Hector would recognize and respect, yet not a man important to the Achaian strength—into the Trojan camp in a crafty move to gain a day’s recuperation from the morning’s disaster.
Marveling at Odysseos’ cunning, I followed the Trojan nobleman called Polydamas through the moonlit night, across the scattered campfires dotting the plain and up to the walls of Troy.
