painted in bright yellows and reds, with blue or green borders running along the ceilings.
The interior of the palace was actually cold. Despite the heat of the morning sun those thick stone walls insulated the palace so well that I almost imagined I could see my breath frosting in the shaded air.
The hall beyond the entrance was beautifully decorated with painted landscapes on its plastered walls: scenes of lovely ladies and handsome men in green fields rich with towering trees. No battles, not even hunting scenes. No proclamations of royal power or fighting prowess.
Statues lined this corridor, most of them life-sized, some smaller, several so huge that their heads or outstretched arms scraped the polished beams of the high ceiling.
“The city’s gods,” my courtier explained. “Most of these statues stood outside our four main gates, before the war. Of course, we brought them in here for safekeeping from the despoiling Achaians. It wouldn’t do for them to capture our gods! What fate would befall us then?”
“Indeed,” I muttered.
Some of the statues were made of marble, most of wood. All were brightly painted. Hair and beards were deep black, tinged with blue. Gowns and tunics were mostly gold, and real jewels adorned them. The flesh was delicately colored, and the eyes were painted so vividly they almost seemed to be watching me.
I could not tell one of their gods from another. The males were all broad-shouldered and bearded, the goddesses ethereally beautiful. Then I recognized Poseidon, the sea god, a nearly naked, magnificently muscled figure who bore a trident in his right hand.
We stepped out of the chilly entrance hall and into the warming sunlight of a courtyard. A huge statue, much too large to fit indoors, stood just before us. I craned my neck to see its face against the crystal-blue morning sky.
“Apollo,” said the courtier. “The protector of our city.”
We started across the sunny courtyard. It was decked with blossoms and flowering shrubs. Potted trees were arranged artfully around a square central pool where fish swam lazily. These people are not warriors, I realized. Not like the Hatti or the Achaians. Artists and tradesmen, I thought, content to control the straits that led into the Sea of Black Waters and the rich lands beyond.
“We also have the Palladium, our statue of Athene,” the courtier said, pointing across the pool to a smaller wooden piece, scarcely five feet tall. “It is very ancient and very sacred.”
It certainly looked very ancient. Its face and draperies had been worn smooth from years of weathering. It seemed to be the image of a woman, but she was wearing a warrior’s helmet and carried spear and shield. A female warrior? I had heard of such but always dismissed the tales as mere legend.
We quickly crossed the courtyard and entered the other wing of the palace. As we stepped into the shade of its wide entrance hall, the temperature dropped instantly.
More guards in polished armor stood in this hallway, although their presence seemed more a matter of pomp and formality rather than security. The courtier led me to a small chamber comfortably furnished with chairs of stretched hide and a gleaming polished table inlaid with beautiful ivory and silver. There was one window, which looked out on another, smaller courtyard, and a massive wooden door reinforced with bronze strapping. Closed.
“The king will see you shortly,” my guide told me, looking nervously toward the closed door.
I took a chair and tried to relax. I did not want to appear tense or apprehensive in front of the Trojan king. The courtier, whom I assumed had spent much of his life in this palace, paced the floor anxiously. He seemed to grow more apprehensive with each passing moment.
At last he blurted, “Do you truly bring an offer of peace, or is this merely another Achaian bluff ?”
So that was it. Beneath his confidence in the walls built by gods and the food and firewood gathered by their army and the eternal spring that Apollo himself protects, he was avid to have the war ended and his city safe and at peace once more.
Before I could reply the heavy wooden door creaked open. Two men-at-arms pushed it, and an old man in a green cloak similar to my courtier’s motioned me to come in. He leaned heavily on a long wooden staff topped with a gold sunburst symbol. His beard was the color of ashes, his head almost totally bald. As I ducked through the doorway and approached him he squinted at me nearsightedly.
“Your proper name, herald?”
“Lukka.”
“Of ?”
I blinked, wondering what he meant. Then I replied, “Of the House of Ithaca.”
He frowned at that, but turned and said, “Follow me.”
19
I walked behind the old man into a spacious chamber crowded with people. Five steps into it, he stopped and banged his staff on the floor three times. I saw that the stone floor was deeply worn at that spot.
He called out, in a voice that may have once been rich and deep but now sounded like a cat yowling, “Oh Great King—Son of Laomedon, Scion of Scamander, Servant of Apollo, Beloved of the gods, Guardian of the Dardanelles, Protector of the Troad, Western Bulwark of the Hatti, Defender of Ilios—an emissary from the Achaians, one Lukka by name, of the House of Ithaca.”
The chamber was wide and high-ceilinged. Its middle was open to the sky above a circular hearth that smoldered a dull red and sent up a faint spiral of gray smoke. Dozens of men stood among the painted columns on the far side of the hearth: the nobility of Troy, I supposed, or at least the noblemen who were too old to be with the army. And their ladies! There were women among them, in robes that were rich with vibrant colors and flashing jewels. That surprised me. Women were never allowed in the emperor’s audience chamber in Hattusas, I knew.
I stepped forward and beheld Priam, the King of Troy, sitting on a splendid throne of carved ebony inlaid with gold. It was set on a threestep-high dais. He was flanked on his right by Hector, who must have come up from his camp on the plain, sitting in a high-backed chair of carved wood. On the king’s left sat a younger man and standing behind him was a woman who could only be Helen.
My breath caught in my throat. She was truly beautiful enough to cause a war. Helen’s blond, golden curls fell past her shoulders. She had a small, almost delicate figure except for magnificent breasts covered only by the sheerest blouse. A girdle of gold cinched her waist, adding emphasis to her bosom. Her face was incredible, sensuous lips and alabaster skin, yet wide-eyed with an appearance of innocence that no man could resist.
The young prince on Priam’s left had to be Paris, I thought. Helen leaned against the intricately carved back of Paris’ chair, resting one hand on his shoulder. It took an effort for me to look away from her and study Paris. He was almost prettily handsome, darker of hair than his older brother, his neatly trimmed beard seemed new, thin. He looked up at her and she smiled dazzlingly at him. Then they both turned their gaze toward me as I approached the throne. Helen’s smile disappeared the instant Paris looked away from her. She regarded me with cool, calculating eyes.
Priam was older even than aged Nestor, and obviously failing. His white beard was thin and ragged, his long hair also, as if some wasting disease had hold of him. He seemed sunk into his robe of royal purple as he sat slumped on his gold-inlaid throne, too tired even this early in the morning to sit upright or lift his arms out of his lap.
The wall behind his throne was painted in a seascape of blues and aquamarines. Graceful boats glided among sporting dolphins. Fishermen spread their nets into waters teeming with every kind of fish.
“My lord king,” said Hector, dressed in a simple white tunic, “this emissary from Agamemnon brings another offer of peace.”
“Let us hear it,” breathed Priam, as faintly as a sigh.
They all looked to me.
I glanced at the assembled nobility and saw an eagerness, a yearning, a clear hope that I carried an offer that would end the war. Especially among the women I could sense the desire for peace, although I realized that the old men were hardly firebrands.
