accustomed to hosting visitors, and there were plenty of inns available. We chose the first one we came to, at the edge of the city. It was almost empty at this time of the year, just after the ending of the rainy season. Wealthier travelers preferred to be in the heart of the city or down by the docks where the boats came in.
The innkeeper was a lean, angular man with a totally bald head, a scrawny fringe of a beard, shrewd eyes, and at least a dozen sons and daughters who worked at various jobs around the inn. He was happy enough to have the ten of us as his guests, although he looked hard at my two little boys.
“They’re well behaved,” I told him before he could work up the nerve to say anything about them.
A look of understanding dawned on his face. “Your sons?”
“Yes. Treat them well.”
“Of course, sir. Of course. My own daughters will watch over them.”
Then he glanced at Helen, who had kept the cowl of her robe pulled up over her golden hair. “And your wife, sir?”
“She will require a room of her own,” I said.
He nodded and smiled knowingly. “Next to yours.”
I smiled back. “Of course.”
Gesturing to our two miserable, creaky wagons, the innkeeper said grandly, “Your goods will be perfectly safe here, sir, even if they were made of solid gold. My sons protect this inn and no thief will touch what is yours.”
I wondered how certain of that he would have been if he’d known that inside the boxes we lifted out of the wagons there really were treasures of gold and jewels from gutted Troy. I let his four sons handle our baggage, but I watched them closely as they stacked the boxes in the inn’s largest room. I chose to sleep in that room myself, together with blind Poletes and the boys. Helen disappeared into the next room, but almost immediately a pro cession of younger women paraded in, four of them tugging a large round wooden tub, others bearing soaps and powders and what ever else women use in their baths.
I frowned with worry over that. A stranger with an entourage that includes a blind old man and a golden- haired beauty. How long will it take that news to spread throughout the city? How long before it reaches the ears of Menalaos or one his men, even if they are half a world away from here?
But there were more immediate problems to deal with. A bony, sallow-faced girl presented herself and offered to watch my sons. I told her not to let them go beyond the inn’s courtyard. After endless days on the road, Lukkawi and Uhri were eager to explore this new and fascinating set of buildings and their yard. They ran off happily with the girl.
The city had whore houses, of course, and my men were eager to sample their wares. Once we got all our baggage stacked in my room I gave Magro permission to go.
“They’ll be back in the morning,” he told me.
“You go with them,” I said. “Try to keep them together.”
His heavy brows rose. “You’ll need someone to guard our goods.”
“I’ll stand guard. You go with the men and try to keep them out of trouble.”
Magro couldn’t hide the grin that broke across his face. “I’ll bring them back in the morning.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Enjoy the city. You’ve earned a night’s entertainment.”
“And you?”
Gesturing to the boxes stacked against the wall, I said, “I’ll guard our treasure.”
“Alone?”
“I have the innkeeper’s ferocious sons.” Two of the grown sons were big and burly, the other two slight and wiry, as if they had been born of a different mother. They hardly seemed dangerous to us, not after the fighting we had seen, but they were probably adequate to ward off sneak thieves.
“And I am here also,” said Poletes, from the bed where he was sitting. “Even without ears I can hear better than a bat. In the dark of night I will be a better guard than you with your two eyes.”
If you don’t snore, I thought.
Helen, in the next room, had commandeered two of the innkeeper’s young daughters to serve her. I heard them chattering and giggling as they hauled buckets of steaming water up the creaking stairs and poured them into the wooden tub for her bath. None of them knew who we were, of course. Or at least, I hoped that none of them had pieced together the significance of a golden-haired beauty traveling with a gaggle of Hatti soldiers and a blind man. As long as no one from Troy has reached Ephesus before us, I reasoned, we were safe.
Still, I was fretful. I paced my room as I munched on the dried figs and tough strips of dried goat meat that the innkeeper had sent for our early dinner.
I stepped out onto the balcony and saw Lukkawi and Uhri playing tag together while the innkeeper’s daughter sat on the ground by the stables, elbows on her knees, watching them. Their laughter lifted my heart. I realized that there is little in the world as happy as the laughter of children.
“Can you see the city?” Poletes asked, still sitting on our bed.
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see it. “Yes. Right outside our balcony, beyond the window.”
“Tell me, what is it like?” He got to his feet, his arms stretched out before him, and stepped uncertainly toward the sound of my voice.
I took his arm and led him out to the balcony. The street on which the inn fronted ran downhill toward the wharves at the water’s edge. Poletes could hear the sounds from the street, but he begged me to describe what I saw. I told him of the temples, the inns, the busy streets thronged with people in colorful robes, the chariots and wagons rolling by, the bustling port, the billowing sails out in the harbor, the splendid houses up on the hills. Ephesus was a prosperous city, peaceful and seemingly secure.
“There must be an agora in the heart of the city, a marketplace,” Poletes said, cackling with anticipation. “Tomorrow one of the men can take me there and I will tell the story of the fall of Troy, of Achilles’ pride and Agamemnon’s cruelty, of the burning of the great city and the slaughter of its heroes. The people will love it!”
“No,” I said as I came in off the balcony. “We can’t let these people know who we are. It’s too dangerous.”
He turned his blind eyes toward me. The scars left by the burns seemed to glower at me accusingly.
“But I’m a storyteller! I have the greatest story anyone’s ever heard, here in my head.” He tapped his temple, just above the ragged slit where his ear had been. “I can make my fortune telling this story!”
“Not here,” I said softly. “And not now.”
“But Master Lukka, I can stop being a burden to you! I could earn my own way! I could become famous!”
“Whoever heard of a storyteller becoming famous?” I growled.
“You’ll be able to travel faster without me,” Poletes insisted. “At least let me—”
“Not while she’s with us,” I said.
He snorted angrily. “That woman has caused more agony than any mortal woman ever born.”
“Perhaps so. But until I see her safely accepted in Egypt, where she can be protected, you’ll tell no tales about Troy.”
Poletes grumbled and mumbled as he groped his way back to the bed. I stayed with him and steered him clear of the stacked boxes of loot.
As the old storyteller plopped down on the dusty feather mattress I heard a scratching at the door. Picking up my sword from the table by the bed, I held it by the scabbard and went to the door, opening it a crack.
It was one of the innkeeper’s daughters, a husky, dimpled girl with mistrustful dark eyes.
She curtsied clumsily and said, “The lady asks if you will come to her chamber.”
I looked up and down the hallway. It was empty, although anyone might be hiding behind the closed doors of the other rooms.
“Tell her I’ll be there in a few moments,” I said.
Shutting the door, I went to the bed and sat on it beside Poletes.
“You needn’t say anything,” he told me. “You’re going to her. She’ll snare you in her web of allurements.”
“You have a poet’s way of expression,” I said.
“Don’t try to flatter me.”
Ignoring his petulance, I asked, “Can you guard our goods until I return?”
