And in their midst, two little boys playing in the sand. My sons!
I rushed up to them. The women scattered, the boys looked up with sudden fear in their faces. They looked all right otherwise, unharmed, unmarked, faces dirty and perhaps thinner than other children I’d seen, but certainly not starving, not injured.
They bolted and ran away from me, wailing. Into the arms of their mother.
Aniti dropped to her knees and scooped them up in her arms. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What’s—”
Then she looked up and saw me.
“Lukka,” she gasped.
“Aniti.”
She got to her feet slowly. The boys hid behind the skirt of her filthy chemise. She looked somewhat heavier than I remembered her, her face smeared with grime, her eyes staring disbelievingly.
“I …” she seemed stunned with surprise. And fear. And shame, I thought. “You’re here.”
“I came from Hattusas to find you and my sons.”
“All that way …”
“You …” I felt just as tongue-tied as she. “They made you a slave.”
She nodded bleakly. “And worse.”
“A whore?”
“To protect the babies. When the slavers attacked our caravan, I did what I had to do to protect them.”
“A whore?” I repeated, miserable in every bone of my body. The anger was gone; I felt ashamed, humiliated.
Aniti’s face hardened. “How do you think I kept them alive? All the way from Hattusas to here. How do you think I kept the slavers and these dogs of barbarians from spitting your sons on their spears?”
I couldn’t find words. There was nothing to say.
“
She was blazing with fury. The boys looked wide-eyed, frightened.
I heard myself say—mutter, really—”I’ll get you back from Agamemnon. You and the boys.”
“No you won’t. The High King doesn’t give away his slaves. Especially those he enjoys having.”
I slapped her face. I didn’t mean to, my hand flashed out on its own. Aniti stood there in shocked silence, the mark of my fingers white on her reddened skin. My sons both burst into tears.
I turned and stalked away from them.
24
Feeling utterly miserable, furious with Aniti and even more so with myself, I made my way back to Odysseos’ camp. My men were sitting around the embers of their midday fire, honing their swords, checking their shields, doing the things soldiers do the day before battle.
Apet sat off to one side, silent and dark. I sat on the sand beside her, silent and dark myself. Dark as a thundercloud. My men took one look at my face and knew enough to steer clear of me.
My sons are alive, I told myself. That’s the important thing. No matter what Aniti has become, she has kept the boys alive and well. I’ll have to take them from her. They can’t remain with a whore, even if she’s their mother. Better she were dead! I’ll take them from her after tomorrow’s battle. If I live through it. If any of us live through it.
But what will I do with her? I can’t take her back, not now. I thought that perhaps what she had become was not her fault; she did what she had to do to protect my sons. Yet how could I take her back? Giving herself willingly to other men. How could I even think of taking her back?
For hours I sat there in silence, my mind spinning. Almost I hoped that tomorrow’s battle would bring my death. That would be a release. Yet who would protect my sons if I died? Who would shield them from the blood lust that turns men into beasts during battle? And Aniti? What will become of her? I knew I shouldn’t care, yet somehow I did.
It was nearly sunset when Odysseos strode up, dressed in a fine wool chiton, and ordered me to come with him to the meeting. I welcomed his command; I needed something to do to take my mind off my sons.
“Leave your sword,” the King of Ithaca told me. “No weapons are allowed in a council meeting.”
I unstrapped my sword and handed it to Magro for safekeeping, then fell in step beside Odysseos.
“Agamemnon will be unhappy,” he told me as we walked through the camp toward the cabin of the High King. “I did not inform him beforehand that I was sending you to Hector.”
I thought the King of Ithaca should have looked worried, even grim, at the prospect of displeasing Agamemnon. Instead, he seemed almost amused, as if the prospect of defending himself before the council did not trouble him one bit.
Despite myself I longed for a glimpse of my wife and sons as we made out way toward Agamemnon’s cabin in the lengthening shadows of sunset. They were nowhere in sight. I tried to blot out of my mind the images of what Aniti did in the night. I tried to focus my thoughts on the boys instead. I tried.
The High King’s cabin was larger than Achilles’, but nowhere near as luxurious. The log walls were bare except for shields hung on them as ornaments, although the king’s bed was hung with rich tapestries. For all his bluster, Agamemnon kept no dais. He sat on the same level as the rest of the council members. The loot of dozens of villages was scattered around the cabin: armor, jeweled swords, long spears with gleaming bronze points, iron and bronze tripods, chests that must have contained much gold and jewelry. The High King had cleared the cabin of women and other slaves. None were there except the council and a few servants. And me, as Odysseos’ chosen emissary to the Trojans.
As soon as we all were seated in a circle around the gray ashes of the hearth, Agamemnon squawked in his high piping voice, “You offered them peace terms?” He leveled a stubby finger at Odysseos. “In my name? Without asking me first?”
The High King looked angry. His right shoulder was swathed in strips of cloth smeared with blood and some smelly poultice. He was broad of shoulder and body, built like a squat turret, round and thick from neck to hips. He wore a sleeveless coat of gilded chain mail over his tunic, which was cut away at the right shoulder for the bandaging. Over the mail was a harness of gleaming leather, with silver buckles and ornaments. A jeweled sword hung at his side. His sandals had gold tassels on their thongs. All in all, Agamemnon looked as if he were dressed for a parade rather than a council of his chief lieutenants, the kings and princes of the various Achaian tribes.
Perhaps he thought to overawe them with his panoply, I thought, knowing their penchant for argument.
I counted thirty-two men sitting in a rough circle around the glowing hearth fire in Agamemnon’s hut, the leaders of the Achaian contingents. Every tribe allied to Agamemnon and his brother Menalaos was there, although the Myrmidones were represented by Patrokles rather than Achilles. I sat behind Odysseos, who was placed two seats down on the High King’s right, near enough to give me the opportunity to study Agamemnon closely.
There was precious little nobility in the features of the High King’s fleshy face. Like his body, his face was broad and heavy, with a wide stub of a nose, a thick brow, and deep-set eyes that seemed to look out at the world with suspicion and resentment. His hair and beard were just beginning to turn gray, but they were well combed and glistening with fresh oil perfumed so heavily that it made my nostrils itch, even from where I sat.
He held a bronze scepter in his left hand; his right rested limply on his lap. The one rule of sanity and order in the council meeting, apparently, was that only the man holding the scepter was allowed to speak.
“Well?” he demanded of Odysseos. “How dare you offer peace terms in my name?”
Odysseos reached for the scepter. Agamemnon let him take it, grudgingly, I thought.
“Son of Atreos, it was nothing more than a ruse for gaining a day’s rest from the Trojan attack. A day the men are using to strengthen our defenses.”
“And to prepare the boats to sail,” muttered Big Ajax, sitting farther down the circle. Agamemnon glared at him.
Odysseos continued, “I knew that Hector and prideful Paris would not accept peace terms while their forces
