“You should have taken the Ugly One’s advice,” she told him, “and fled the city.”
“You did not,” he countered quietly.
She remembered her last talk with Polites and shook her head, smiling. “You are right, Xander. It is not my place to judge you.”
Xander examined the deep gash on Kalliades’ thigh. “It is very angry,” he said, frowning, “and I think corruption is setting in.” From his satchel he brought out some dry brown vegetation. “This is tree moss,” he explained to them. “It is old, but it still has virtue to purify.” He bound it to the wound with a bandage. “The wound should have been stitched long since,” he told the warrior. “I fear it will always pain you.”
Kalliades told him, “If I live through this day, I will rejoice in the pain.”
After healer and warrior had left, Andromache sat with the sleeping boys. She scanned Astyanax’s face, seeking something of his father in the angle of an eyebrow, the curve of an ear. She wondered again where Helikaon and the Xanthos were. Then the familiar demon guilt rose in her heart, and she thought of Hektor. She realized how much she missed him and found herself wishing he was there beside her. She always felt safe with Hektor. With Helikaon there was always danger.
She wandered to the north window, where light was fading on the plain of the Simoeis. She recalled her trip by donkey cart into the city with the cargo of tin. That night she had looked up at those high windows and wondered if anyone was up there staring down. Now she looked down into darkness and guessed no one was there. With the city open to him, Agamemnon would not waste men guarding the sheer north walls.
The north walls. Look to the north. Suddenly Andromache realized what the words meant. She leaned over the window ledge and looked far down to the bottom of the cliffs. If she could find rope, could she get two children down the vertical cliff? She moved her wounded shoulder. Back and forth did not hurt much, but when she lifted it above her head, the pain was agonizing. She could never do it.
Yet Odysseus and Kassandra always gave good advice, each in his or her own way. And they were right. It was the only path left to her now if she hoped to save her son. She leaned over the window ledge again. Darkness was gathering, but as she looked down, she could just make out a figure climbing toward her.
Her heart seemed suddenly to slow, and its thudding echoed in her ears. She could not see the climber’s face, not even his age or build, but she knew without a doubt that it was Helikaon.
Earlier that day, while the sun still sat high in the sky, Helikaon stood impatiently on the prow of the Xanthos as the great bireme made her last journey up the Simoeis.
His emotions had been in disarray since, off Lesbos two days before, they had encountered a Kypriot vessel loaded with refugees from Troy and had heard of Hektor’s death and the fall of the city. Hektor dead! He had found it impossible to believe. Hektor had been feared dead before. But he heard the refugees’ tales of the duel with Achilles, the poison and betrayal, and the great funeral pyre, and with pain in his heart he knew it to be true.
There was no news of Andromache, but he was sure she still lived; he knew every bone in his body would ache if she was no longer in his world.
Now, as the galley slipped up the narrowing river, he looked south toward Troy. The oarsmen, too, kept glancing at the city, their faces grim, watching the flames leaping from the walls, darkening the pale sky to the color of bronze.
Suddenly Helikaon could wait no longer. He ordered the starboard rowers to ship their oars, and the oarsmen to port guided the galley into the side. Even as she bumped gently into the reed-covered bank, Helikaon turned and addressed his crew.
“You are all Dardanians here,” he told them, his deep voice somber. “My fight is not yours. I am going to the city, and I will go alone. If any of you wish to return to Dardanos, leave here and now, and may the gods walk with you. For the rest of you the Xanthos sails at dawn. If I do not return, Oniacus will be your captain. He will first take the ship to Thera, then follow the Trojan fleet to the Seven Hills.” He glanced at his right-hand man, who nodded. They had discussed this at length, and he knew Oniacus would follow his orders loyally.
But there were cries from the men, “We will go with you, Golden One!”
Helikaon shook his head. “I will go alone,” he repeated. “I do not know if anyone can get into the city now. And if we could, even the eighty of you, brave men and true, would make little difference against the hordes of the enemy. Go to the Seven Hills. Many of you already have families there. It is your home now.”
There were more shouts and entreaties from the crew. But Helikaon ignored them, strapping to his back the scabbard with its twin leaf-bladed swords, then hefting a thick coil of rope onto his shoulder.
The cries died down, and then a single voice asked, “Do you plan to die in Troy, lord?”
He stared coldly at the questioner. “I plan to live,” he told him.
Then he vaulted smoothly over the side and onto the riverbank. Without a glance back at the Xanthos, he set off at a steady lope toward the Golden City.
As he ran, his thoughts were of Andromache and the boys. If she still lived, Dex and Astyanax must be alive. She would fight to the death for them, he was certain. Two nights and two days had passed since the enemy had entered the city. Could anyone still be alive? How long could they hold Priam’s palace? In the previous siege the defenders had numbered a mere handful, yet they had held back the invaders all night. This time the number of the enemy could be a hundred times greater. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the endless speculation. First he had to find his way in.
It was getting dark when he reached the north walls of the city. He made his way to the point directly beneath the queen’s apartments. Looking up, he could see lights in the high windows. They seemed so close. Yet to get there he had to scale a dry, crumbling vertical cliff face. That was the easy part. Above that was the sheer limestone wall of Troy itself.
When he and Hektor had been young men, they once had competed to make this climb. Scaling the lower cliff, with its numerous handholds and footholds and rocky outcrops, they had ascended quickly, shoulder to shoulder. Then they had reached the point where the cliff ended and the wall began. There was a wide ledge there, and they had paused. They both had looked up at the golden stones from which the wall was fashioned. They were massive, each more than the height of a man, and so cunningly crafted that there was not the narrowest fingerhold between them. The pair had turned to each other and laughed. They had agreed it was impossible and had climbed down, their friendly contest over.
Now, a man ten years older, he was planning to try something a youngster at the height of his strength could not do. Only desperation would make him attempt it, but he could see no other choice.
He started to climb. As he remembered, the hand-and footholds were plentiful, although dry and crumbly after the hot summer. The initial ascent was not difficult, and within a short time he was on the ledge that marked the top of the cliff and the bottom of the wall. He paused for breath, looking up again. He had come this far. He could not stop now. But in the gathering dark he could see not a single handhold.
He dropped the coil of rope on the ledge beside him. In desperation he looked up again. Miraculously, leaning over the window ledge high above him, her chestnut hair a halo of flame in the light from the window, was Andromache.
“Goddess,” he whispered. “I am truly blessed.”
“Andromache!” he called. “Catch the rope!”
She nodded silently. He picked up the rope again, carefully trapping the loose end under one foot. He steadied himself, then with a mighty effort threw the coil upward. But his caution made it fall short. Andromache grasped vainly at thin air, and the rope fell back, missing Helikaon and looping far down the cliff. Patiently he wound it up again. Now he had the measure of the throw, and at his second attempt he hurled the coil harder and it landed in Andromache’s waiting hands.