ceremonial long green robe, when the guard and I got back there. Otherwise the columned chamber was empty, silent except for our footsteps padding softly on the stone floor.
“The king and royal princes are deliberating on your message, Hittite,” the courtier told me, nearly whispering. “You are to wait.”
He left and I waited, wondering how and when Helen’s servant would meet up with me. The guard went to the far door and stood there, immobile, except for his eyes watching me. I studied Priam’s throne. I had never seen the throne of the emperor back at Hattusas, but it could hardly be grander than this magnificent chair of midnight- black ebony and its filigreed inlays of gold, I thought. Troy is rich, that is clear. No wonder Agamemnon and the other Achaians want it.
“Hittite.”
I turned to see Hector approaching me. And berated myself for not being alert enough to hear his footsteps.
“Prince Hector,” I said.
“Come with me. We have an answer for Agamemnon.”
I followed him into another part of the palace. As before, Hector wore only a simple tunic, almost bare of adornment. No weapons, except for the ornamental dagger. No jewelry. No proclamation of his rank. He carried his nobility in his person, and anyone who saw him instinctively knew that here was a man of merit and honor.
Yet, as I matched him stride for stride through the palace’s maze of halls and chambers, I saw again that the war had taken its toll of him. His bearded face was deeply etched by lines around the mouth and eyes. His brow was creased and a permanent notch of worry had worn itself into the space between his eyebrows.
We walked in tight silence to the far side of the palace and up a steep narrow stairway that was deep in gloomy darkness lit only by occasional slits of windows. Higher and higher we climbed the steep, circling stone steps, breathing hard, around and around the stairwell’s narrow confines until at last we squeezed through a low square doorway onto the platform at the top of Troy’s tallest tower.
“Paris will join us shortly,” said Hector, walking over to the giant’s teeth of the battlements. It was almost noon, and hot in the glaring sun despite the stiff breeze from the sea that gusted at us and set Hector’s brown hair flowing.
From this vantage I could see the Achaian camp, scores of long black boats drawn up on the beach behind the sandy rampart and trench. The Trojan forces were camped on the plain, tents and chariots dotting the worn- bare soil, cook fires sending up thin tendrils of smoke that were quickly blown away by the wind.
Beyond the gentle waves rolling up onto the beach I saw an island near the horizon, a brown hump of a worn mountain, and beyond it another hovering ghostlike in the blue hazy distance.
“Well, Brother, have you told him?”
I turned and saw Paris striding briskly toward us. Unlike Hector, his tunic looked as soft as silk and he wore a handsome royal-blue cloak over it. A jeweled sword was at his hip and more jewels flashed on his fingers and at his throat. His hair and beard were carefully trimmed and gleamed with sweet-smelling oil. His face was unlined, though he seemed not that many years younger than his brother.
“I was waiting for you,” said Hector.
“Good! Then let me give him the news.”
“Wait,” Hector said, raising one hand to hold back his brother. “I have a question to ask this man.”
I thought I knew what he was going to ask me.
Sure enough, Hector fixed me with a stern gaze and said, “You say you are a Hittite.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“A soldier of the emperor?”
I nodded mutely.
“Is your emperor sending troops to aid us? We asked for help many moons ago. Are you the first contingent to arrive here?”
“And if you are,” Paris interrupted sharply, “what are you doing in the Achaian camp? Fighting against us? Claiming to be of Odysseos’ House of Ithaca?”
I kept my eyes focused on Hector. “My lord, the emperor of the Hatti is not sending troops to help you. He cannot even help himself. He is dead, murdered. The empire is racked by civil war. I brought my squad of men here seeking my wife and sons.”
Hector studied my face for long moments, as if trying to determine if I was telling the truth or not. I looked back into his steady brown eyes.
At last he murmured, “We’ll get no help from the Hittites, then.”
“So much for being the western bulwark of their empire,” Paris sneered. “When we need them, they have no strength to help us.”
Shaking his head, Hector said to his brother, “It changes nothing. At least the Hittites aren’t coming to fight against us.”
Paris looked surprised at that idea.
“Very well,” Hector said, with a tired sigh, “give him our father’s reply.”
Smiling nastily, Paris said to me, “You may tell fat Agamemnon that King Priam rejects his pathetic offer. Moreover, by this time tomorrow our chariots will be riding through his camp, burning his boats and slaying his white-livered Achaians until nothing is left but ashes and bones. Our dogs will feast well tomorrow night.”
I kept my face frozen, impassive.
Hector made the tiniest shake of his head, then laid a restraining hand on his brother’s blue-cloaked shoulder. “Our father is not feeling well enough to see you again, Hittite. And although my brother’s hot words may seem insulting, the answer that we have for Agamemnon is that we reject his offer of peace.”
“And any offer that includes returning my wife to the barbarian!” Paris snapped.
“Then we will have war again tomorrow,” I said.
“Indeed we will,” said Paris.
I asked, “Do you really think you are strong enough to break through the Achaian defenses and burn their fleet?”
“The gods will decide,” Hector said calmly.
“In our favor,” added Paris.
22
Hector gave me a four-man guard of honor to escort me out of the same gate that I had entered the night before. And Apet was standing at the gate waiting for me in her hooded black robe. Still as silent a Death, she fell in with my escort as we passed through the walls of Troy. The guards took no notice of her; it was as if she were invisible them.
They called it the Scaean Gate, and I learned that it was the largest of four gates to the city. In the daylight I could see the massive walls of Troy close-up. Almost I could believe that gods had helped to build them. Immense blocks of stone were wedged together to a height some five times more than the tallest man. High square towers surmounted the walls at each gate and at the corners. The walls sloped outward, so that they were thickest at ground level.
Since the city was built on the bluff overlooking the plain of Ilios, an attacking army would have to fight its way uphill before ever reaching the walls.
I returned to the Achaian camp to find old Poletes waiting at the makeshift gate for me.
“Who is this?” he asked, staring at Apet.
“A messenger from Helen,” I replied.
Poletes’ eyes brightened. “What news does she bring?”
“Nothing good,” I said. “There will be battle tomorrow.”
Poletes’ skinny shoulders slumped beneath his threadbare tunic. “The fools. The bloody fools.”
“Where are my men?” I asked.
With a gesture, he replied, “At the Ithacans’ camp, by the boats.”
