carrying the trappings from the cabins of the nobles to the boats. Women were lugging cook pots and utensils to the rope baskets that were being used to haul them up to the decks. Stinking, bleating goats and sheep were being driven from their pens onto the boats. The fine horses that pulled the chariots were led carefully up wooden planked gangways while grunting, sweating slaves pushed the chariots themselves up the gangplanks after them. Everywhere there was shouting, calling, groaning, squealing beneath the hot morning sun. At least the wind off the water cooled the struggling workers somewhat.
I put my men to gathering horses and donkeys, and a pair of carts to go with them. I gave them some of the weapons I had taken from Odysseos’ boat to use for trading. Most of them were ornamental, with engraved bronze blades and hilts glittering with jewels: not much use in battle, but they fetched good value in trading for well-shod horses or strong little donkeys.
As I stood in front of my tent surveying the Achaians breaking up their camp and preparing to sail back to their homes, I realized that I didn’t know where my sons were. I looked around the boats, asked some of the women busily toting loads. No one had seen them since sunup.
The five-year-old’s name was Lukkawi, I recalled, named after me since he was the firstborn. I had to search my memory for his younger brother’s name. Uhri, I finally remembered.
Where were they? With growing disquiet I went from boat to boat, searching for them, calling their names over the din and commotion of the camp.
I found them splashing by themselves in the gentle wavelets lapping up onto the beach, under the stern of one of Odysseos’ black boats. They looked up and froze into wary-eyed immobility as I approached them.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said to them, as gently as I knew how. “I’m your father. Don’t you remember me?”
“Father?” asked Lukkawi in a small, fearful voice.
“Where’s my mama?” Uhri asked.
I took in a breath and squatted on my heels before them so I could be closer to eye-level with them. I realized that their eyes were gray-blue, like mine.
“Your mother’s gone away,” I said softly. “But I’m with you now and I’ll take care of you.”
“Yes, sir,” Lukkawi said. He was accustomed to receiving orders, and obeying them, even though he was barely more than five.
Their faces were smudged with grime. The smocks they wore were filthy, tattered. I dropped down onto the sand and took off my sword. Both boys eyed it but made no move to touch it. Then I unlaced my boots and placed them carefully next to the sword.
“Let’s take a swim,” I said, making myself smile at them.
They made no move, no response.
Getting slowly to my feet, I said, “In the water. We’ll pretend we’re dolphins.”
“Mama told us not to go into the water,” little Uhri said in his high child’s voice.
“Not above our knees,” added Lukkawi.
Nodding, I replied, “That’s all right. I’ll hold you. We’ll look for fish.”
I scooped Uhri up in one arm; he was as light as a little bird. I looked down at Lukkawi and offered him my free arm. He hesitated a moment, then reached up and allowed me to lift him off the sand. Both boys clutched at my neck and I stood there for a brief moment, my heart thumping beneath my ribs, my sons in my arms.
And my heart melted. These were my sons. They trusted me to protect them, to provide for them, to show them how to become men. I felt a lump in my throat that I’d never known before.
“We’re going into the water now,” I told them, my voice strangely husky. “It’s all right. I’ll hold you. You’ll be safe.”
Slowly I waded into the water. Up to my knees. Up to my waist. When the boys’ feet touched the water they both squirmed.
“It’s cold!”
“No, no. That’s only the way it feels at first. You’ll get used to it and then it will feel warm.”
I held them tightly and moved very slowly into deeper water. Uhri let go of me with one hand and splashed a wave into his brother’s face. Lukkawi splashed back. In a few heartbeats they were laughing and splashing, drenching me and each other.
We laughed and played together. Before long the boys were paddling happily in the water.
“Look! I’m a fish!” Lukkawi shouted, and then he squirted out a mouthful of water.
“Me too!” cried Uhri.
I sat on the sea bottom, only my head and shoulders above the waves, and watched my sons playing in the water. It was strange. I hardly knew these boys, yet once they clung to me, once they trusted me in the water, I felt as if they were truly mine forever. My father had been right. Flesh of my flesh: these boys were my sons and I would protect them and teach them and help them all I could to grow into strong, self-reliant men.
When I told them it was time to get out of the water they both squalled with complaint. But when I said that I was hungry, they quickly agreed that they were hungry, too. They shivered as we walked back to the tents, despite the warm noontime sunshine. I stripped off their wet rags, rubbed them down with woolen blankets and found decent shifts for them to wear. They were too big, of course: Uhri’s dragged on the ground until I got one of the women to stitch a hem on it.
We ate with my men: chunks of broiled goat and warm flat bread. The boys drank water, the men wine. There was plenty of meat to be had, since the sacrifices of the previous night.
That made me think of Aniti again, and my guts clenched inside me. I told myself that there was nothing I could do about her. I had tried my best to save her and failed. Now I had my two sons to take care of. What’s done is done and not even the gods can unravel it. Yet my insides burned.
Until my mind pictured Helen’s incredible face and golden hair. What’s happened to her? I found myself wondering. Does she still live?
After our noonday meal I looked in on Poletes. He was awake, lying on his back on my cot, his eyes covered by a poultice-smeared rag.
“How do you feel?” I asked him.
For a few heartbeats he made no reply. Then, “The pain is easing, Master Lukka.”
“Good. Tomorrow we leave this wretched place.”
“Will you put me out of my misery then?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me. “No. You’ll come with us.”
“I’ll be nothing but a burden to you.”
“You’ll come with us,” I repeated. “We might need you.”
“Need me?” he sounded genuinely surprised at the thought. “Need me for what?”
“To tell the tale of Troy, old windbag. When we come to a village the people will gather ’round to hear your voice.”
Again he fell silent. At last he murmured, “At least Agamemnon didn’t cut my tongue out.”
“His knife would have broken on it, most likely.”
Poletes actually laughed a little. “I have you to thank for that small mercy, Master Lukka.”
I grasped his knobby knee and shook it. “Rest now. Get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we travel.”
“To where?”
I shook my head, although he couldn’t see it. “South, I think. There are cities along the coast that might welcome a group of trained Hatti soldiers.”
“And a blind old man.”
“And two little boys,” I added.
I spent the rest of the afternoon supervising my men as they assembled a pair of sturdy carts and a half- dozen donkeys to pull them. I would have preferred oxen, but they had all been sacrificed. We also had horses for each of us. The boys and Poletes would ride in one of the carts, with the food and water we had collected. Our loot and weapons were piled in the second cart.
The boys tagged along with me all the long afternoon, getting underfoot, asking endless questions about where we were going, how long our trip would be—and whether we would meet their mother on our travels. I answered them abruptly, tried to shoo them out of the way, but they never strayed more than a spear’s length from my side.
Once the tide came up, several of Odysseos’ boats put out to sea, pushed into the water by grunting, cursing
