but wiry, roped with muscle.
“And who in the name of Hades are you?” His voice was low, gruff.
The men who had been eating out of wooden bowls were looking up at us. Several of them got slowly to their feet. I knew my own men were drawing themselves up behind me.
“I am Lukka, of the Hatti. Hittites, in your tongue. I’ve offered the services of my men to your High King.”
The man blinked several times. He’s trying to find a way to deal with us without humiliating himself, I reasoned. He doesn’t want a fight, and neither do I.
“I can pay for what ever food you provide,” I said.
“Pay?”
I held out the spear. “Take it. Its point is made of iron, far stronger than your bronze spearpoints.”
He hesitated. “Bronze holds a sharper edge.”
“And shatters where an iron point holds strong.” With a nod, he took the spear from my hand. He hefted it, then allowed a slow smile to creep across his bearded face.
“Hittites, eh? You’ve come a long way, then.”
“We have,” I said, making myself smile back at him. “And we’re hungry.”
He nodded and turned to the stolid, thickset wench stirring the pot. With a kick to her rump he barked, “Find more meat for the stew! We have hungry mouths to feed.”
It turned out that he was not a difficult man, after all. His name was Oetylos, and like the rest of the High King’s men he was from Argos.
“Agamemnon is a mighty king,” he said over his wooden bowl as we sat together. “Who else could have brought all these kings and princes together to bring Helen back to her rightful husband?”
I ate the hot, spicy stew slowly and let him talk. I needed to know more about this Agamemnon. I needed to know how I could get this mighty king to release my wife from slavery. And my sons, if they still lived.
9
I woke with the sun. A chill wind swept in from the sea as the first rays of light peeped over the high wall of the city, up on the bluff. My men, who had been sleeping on the ground wrapped in their cloaks as I had, stirred and began to sit up, coughing and complaining, as usual. Looking around for Poletes, I saw him huddled with several of the dogs, scratching fleas as he still slept.
Silent, sad-faced women brought us wooden cups and filled them with a thin barley gruel. My wife was not among them. We sat in a circle and sipped at our breakfast while the Achaian camp slowly came astir. Poletes joined us, grateful to be given a steaming bowl.
Then Thersandros came striding among us, fists on his hips. “Hittite!” he called to me.
I got to my feet. There was little sense of discipline that I could see. Instead of saluting him I merely walked over and stood three paces before his wary eyes.
“Do Hittite warriors know how to dig?” he asked me, almost in a growl.
“All soldiers learn to use a shovel,” I replied. “My men have built—”
He cut me off with a curt gesture. Pointing to the top of the earthen rampart that protected the camp, he said, “Then take your men up there and do what you can to strengthen the wall.”
I wanted to tell him that he would be wasting our abilities; we were soldiers, not laborers. Instead I said, “How soon can I see your High King? I want to offer—”
“Offer your backs to the shovels,” Thersandros said. “My lord Agamemnon has other things on his mind this morning.”
With that he turned and walked away from me.
A soldier learns to obey orders or he doesn’t remain a soldier for long. I decided there was nothing I could do but bide my time.
My men were on their feet by now. Walking back to them, I told them that our task this fine, breezy morning was an engineering detail.
Magro saw through my words immediately. “They want us to dig for them?”
I nodded and smiled grimly.
Oetylos had shovels waiting for us. Grousing and frowning, my men took the tools and started trudging up the slope of the rampart.
“You, too, storyteller,” Oetylos said to Poletes, and he threw the old man a filth-encrusted burlap sack: for carrying sand, I surmised.
We were not the only ones plodding up the rampart. Work gangs of slaves and
The rampart stretched along the length of the beach, protecting the camp and the boats pulled up onto the sand. I could see only one opening in the sandy wall, protected by a ramshackle wooden gate and guarded by half a dozen lounging spearmen. In front of the rampart was a broad ditch, studded with wooden spikes, as was the top of the fortification itself.
Once at the top of the rampart we had a fine view of the plain and the city of Troy up on the bluff. Its walls were crenellated, its gates tightly shut. Inside the Achaian camp warriors were eating a breakfast of broiled mutton and thick flat bread, while their slaves and men-at-arms yoked horses to chariots and sharpened swords and spears.
“They’re going to attack the city,” I surmised aloud.
Poletes answered in his surprisingly strong voice, “They will do battle on the plain. The Trojans will come out this day to fight.”
“Why should they come out from behind those walls?” I wondered.
Poletes shrugged his skinny shoulders. “It has been arranged by the heralds. Agamemnon offered battle and white-bearded Priam accepted. The princes of Troy will ride out in their fine chariots to fight the kings of the Achaians.”
That didn’t make much sense to me, and I wondered if the storyteller was trying to make up a dramatic scene out of whole cloth.
As the sun rose higher in the sparkling clear sky we worked at improving the rampart. I immediately saw that the best thing to do was dig sand out of the bottom of the ditch that fronted the defensive wall and carry it up to the top. That way the ditch got deeper and the rampart grew higher. It was hot work, and my men sweated almost as much as they grumbled and swore about their work.
I dug and sweated alongside them. I assigned Poletes to stay at the summit, watching over our weapons and shields and jerkins, which we had left there. We worked in our skirts, bare to the waist.
The morning was quite beautiful. Up at the top of the rampart the cool breeze from the sea felt good on my sweaty skin. The sky was a wondrously clear bowl of sparkling blue, dotted by screeching white gulls that soared above us. The sea was a much deeper blue where restless surges of white-foamed waves danced endlessly. Grayish brown humps of islands rose along the distant horizon. In the other direction Troy’s towers seemed to glower darkly at us from across the plain. The distant hills behind the city were dark with trees, and beyond them rose hazy bluish mountains, wavering in the heat.
Slaves and
I saw that Poletes had wandered off a ways to talk with some of the others, his skinny arms waving animatedly, his eyes big and round. At length he returned to our cache of weapons and clothes and beckoned to me.
“All is not well among the high and mighty this morning,” he halfwhispered to me, grinning with delight. “There’s some argument between my lord Agamemnon and Achilles, the great slayer of men. They say that Achilles will not leave his lodge today.”
“Not even to help us dig?” I joked.
