“The Hatti?” she asked.
“A mighty empire,” replied Hector, “far to the east. They have been our allies for generations.”
“I sent an emissary to them when the Achaians first drew up their black boats on our shore,” Priam said. “Their army should come to our aid soon.”
Helen glanced at Hector. Gently, Hector said to his father, “If the Hatti have not come in all the time since we sent our emissary to them, Father, they are not coming at all.”
“Not so,” argued the king, his brow wrinkling. “Their capital is far to the east. They will come … any day now … they
Hector smiled sadly and said nothing more to disillusion his father.
Priam shook his white head. “The Achaians send back to their homeland for fresh warriors. We have only the villagers nearby to help us. The Hatti are our only chance to win this war.”
Both men looked at Helen. The brief surge of hope she had felt sank away like water seeping into sand.
“Call Odysseos,” she said. “Arrange a truce and offer to make peace.”
Priam blinked his watery eyes at her. I could see the conflict in his soul.
Hector said to his father, “Once we try to negotiate they will think we are weakening. It would be better to drive the Achaians away in fair battle than to barter for peace. Otherwise they will take Helen and then continue the war.”
“Yes, I agree,” Priam said, with a sigh. “But we have not been able to drive them away, have we?”
“Achilles was not on the field of battle this afternoon, Father. Perhaps he is hurt, or ill.”
Priam’s red-rimmed eyes flashed with sudden hope. “Their camp has been struck by disease more than once.”
“Let us beat them off and drive them into the sea before Achilles returns to the battle,” Hector urged. “Then there will be no need to send Helen to them.”
Priam seemed lost in thought.
“What guarantees have we that they will leave us in peace once Helen has been returned to them?” Hector asked. “Agamemnon wants to break our power! He’s come too far to sail meekly back home without destroying us.”
Hector did not want Helen to leave Troy! He was adamantly against the idea! I could see her cheeks flush with emotion. She knew it was foolish, but she could not help but think that he cared for her, perhaps without even realizing it in his conscious mind.
Then Hector added, “It would break Paris’ heart to part with Helen. Just as it would break mine to part with Andromache. No man willingly gives up his wife.”
Helen’s face sank. Hector was thinking of his brother, of his city, not of her.
Priam gazed at Helen for long moments. I held my breath.
Finally the king said, “If Achilles does not come out to fight tomorrow morning, we will do our utmost to drive the Achaians into the sea. But if he is in their battle line, we will ask Odysseos for a truce to discuss terms of peace.”
Hector glanced at Helen once more, then turned back to his father. “Agreed,” he said.
Helen fled the room as quickly as she decently could, fighting to hold back her tears as she ran through the corridors of the dark and silent palace.
III
THE DOWNFALL OF TROY
1
“It was three days ago,” said Apet to me, “when Helen realized that she loved Hector, not his brother. That was the day that she fled to the temple of Aphrodite to seek the goddess’ help.”
“When she told King Priam she would return to Menalaos to stop the war,” I said.
The fire was down to nothing but cold ashes by the time Apet finished her tale. The sky to the east was beginning to turn milky white with the coming dawn.
Apet stared at me with her coal-black eyes. “I wonder, Hittite, if you are the answer to her prayer.”
“Me?” I scoffed at the idea.
“Perhaps Aphrodite has sent you to Helen,” Apet murmured. “The gods move in strange paths, far beyond our poor powers of understanding.”
I shook my head, refusing to accept the possibility. The old crone had told me too much, especially about Prince Hector. It’s a mistake to know your enemies too well, I thought. Better that they be faceless, soulless figures to be cut down without thinking about their loves, their fears, their hopes.
“Now you know how Helen came to Troy,” Apet said, her voice dry and hoarse. “Now you know how her heart aches.”
I nodded and got slowly to my feet. My legs were stiff from sitting for so long. I reached down and helped her to get up.
“What do you intend to do, Hittite?” the old woman asked me.
“What I must, Egyptian,” I replied. “My wife and children are in this camp, among Agamemnon’s slaves. I must save them.”
Her dark eyes lit with understanding. “Then you will fight against Hector.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you will be the instrument the fates have chosen to deal him his death.”
I didn’t answer, but I thought it more likely that I would be one of those to die in the morning’s battle.
“Come,” I said at last, “I’ll escort you to the gate. From there the Trojans can take you back to the city.”
I took up my spear and shield. Apet pulled up the hood of her robe and followed me, silent as a shadow again, to the ramshackle gate in the parapet. A team of men were working in the dawn’s pale light to reinforce the gate with additional planks. I thought it would be better to tear down the ramp leading up to the gate, so that the Trojan chariots couldn’t rush up on it. But these Achaians seemed to have no head for engineering, or any other military finesse.
We squeezed through the planks of the gate while the workmen hammered away and their foreman frowned at us. Out beyond, the plain was dotted by hundreds of tiny points of light: the last smoldering remains of the Trojans’ campfires.
I walked Apet down the rampway and out onto the bare earth of the battleground perhaps a hundred paces before a Trojan sentry cried, “Halt! You there! Stop!”
He was alone, armed with a spear as I was. He held his shield before him as he slowly, reluctantly, approached us.
“This woman is a servant of Princess Helen,” I said, keeping my voice firm and even. “She is to be returned to the city.”
Without waiting for him to reply I turned and headed back toward the gate. Apet will be safe enough, I told myself. The lad will take her to his officer who will see to it that she gets back to her mistress.
I saw men up atop the rampart, silhouetted against the brightening sky: archers sticking handfuls of arrows into the sand, skinny wide-eyed youths piling up javelins and stones for slinging. Footmen were gathering behind the gate now, stacking up spears in preparation for battle. Servants were strapping armor onto their lords, who looked grim and tense as I walked alone past them. By the time I got back to my own men, the sky was turning pink. The dawn bugle sounded. I would get no sleep at all before the battle started.
Odysseos clambered down from his boat in bronze breastplate, arm guards and greaves. Behind him came four young men bearing his helmet, his heavy oxhide shield and spears of various lengths and weights.
