The Trojan prince squatted down beside him. “You look unwell, lad,” he commented. “You lost a good friend yesterday.”
Skorpios nodded miserably. Hektor put a hand on his shoulder. “Justinos was a fine warrior. I have seldom seen better. Make sure you get some food today; then you will sleep better tonight.
“Now,” he said, turning his gaze on the rider in black. “What do you think of this?”
“I think he is a madman. He must know there are hundreds of warriors in these woods who could ride down and kill him in a heartbeat.”
“Yet he knows they will not, because he is a man of honor, and such men believe against all the evidence that others are the same.” There was a long silence. “That is Achilles, lad, and yesterday I killed his friend Patroklos.”
“Will you go down and fight him?” Skorpios blurted out the question without thinking.
Hektor thought for a long moment, then said, “The time will probably come, Skorpios, when I will. But I will not fight him today, when there is nothing resting on it except the honor of two men.”
Is that not enough? Skorpios wanted to say, but he remained silent.
The next day the rider was a priest of Ares. Skorpios sat his horse in plain sight high on the ridge with others of the Trojan Horse. They watched as the priest, garbed in black robes with twin red sashes, traveled up the river, stopping from time to time to shout out the challenge from Achilles to Hektor. The Trojans watched him for much of the day until, as the sun fell into the horizon, he returned to the city.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE WRATH OF ACHILLES
On the third day the rider was the king of Ithaka.
Mounted on a sturdy bay gelding and wearing a wide straw hat to guard his head from the blazing sun, Odysseus was sorely conscious that he lacked the grace of Achilles or even that of the priest. He recalled that Penelope once had told him teasingly that he rode like a sack of carrots. He had confessed, “A sack of carrots would be ashamed to ride this badly, my love.”
He walked the horse slowly to where the Scamander gushed under a wooden bridge short of the foothills, dismounted gratefully, and settled down to wait. He had brought enough food for two but was prepared to enjoy the peace and silence of a day alone.
The sun was starting to fall down the sky when he finally saw a horseman coming toward him out of the tree line. He could tell at a glance it was Hektor by the rider’s size and riding style.
As he got closer, Odysseus could see that the Trojan prince had aged a good deal since they last had met. Hektor reined in his mount and regarded him silently for a moment, then got down.
“Well, king,” he said coolly, “we meet again in strange times. Are you Achilles’ mouthpiece today?”
Odysseus chewed on a piece of bread and swallowed. Ignoring the question, he gestured to the black horse Hektor was riding. “Where is Ares? He cannot be old yet. I remember him as a foal not six years ago.”
“Great Ares is dead.” Hektor sighed, his stiff demeanor vanishing as he sat down on the riverbank. “He fell at the battle of the Scamander, lanced through the chest.”
“I saw that,” Odysseus replied, frowning, “but then I saw him rise up and brave the river to save your troops.”
Hektor nodded, his face sorrowful. “He had a great heart. But it was gravely wounded. He fell and died before we could reach the city.”
“This one has a wild eye,” the king commented, glaring at the black horse, which looked back at him him balefully.
Hektor smiled. “His name is Hero. He has an angry nature. He is the horse which leaped the chasm at Dardanos. You have heard the story?”
“I invented the story.” Odysseus chuckled. “I am surprised to see the creature does not have wings and fire flaring from his nostrils.”
Hektor’s laughter rang out. “Truly it is good to see you, sea uncle. I have missed your company and your tales.” Odysseus saw a little of the weight of war and its burdens fall from the young man’s shoulders.
“Here, have some bread and cheese. I doubt if you’ve had either for many days. It will seem like a feast in the Hall of Heroes.”
Hektor tucked into the food with gusto, and Odysseus pulled more salt bread and cheese and some dried fruit from the leather bag at his side. There was a jug of watered wine in there as well. They ate, then Odysseus lay back with his head in his hands. The sky was of a blue so pale that it was almost white. He sniffed the evening breeze.
“There is a scent of autumn in the air,” Hektor commented, swallowing the last of the bread. “There could be rain soon. The city would likely hold out until the winter then.”
“Without food?” Odysseus snorted.
Hektor looked at him. “Neither you nor I can guess how much food they have still. You may have your spies in Troy, but a hundred spies are worth nothing if they cannot get their information out.”
Odysseus countered, “And a lakeful of water is worth little if they have no grain and no meat. We both know the situation in Troy must be perilous by now.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while longer, listening to the plashing of the river blending with the liquid sounds of birdsong high above. Then Hektor asked, “You have come to challenge me to fight Achilles?”
The king took a swig from the wine jug and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Agamemnon makes an interesting offer. I thought you should hear it.”
When Hektor said nothing in response, he went on. “If you will fight Achilles in a death match, regardless of the outcome, Agamemnon will permit the women and children of Troy to leave the city in safety.”
Hektor looked into his eyes. “Including my wife and son?”
Odysseus sighed and dropped his gaze. “No, he will not allow that. No members of the royal family may leave Troy. Nor the Dardanian boy, Helikaon’s son. Nor the two Thrakian princes.”
“Do you trust Agamemnon?”
Odysseus burst out laughing. “By the black balls of Hades, no!” He shook his head in amusement.
“Then why should I?”
“Because I will see that the terms of the offer are made public to all the kings and their armies. They are a wretched rabble, most of these kings, but they will not allow the slaughter of innocents if their safety has been guaranteed by all. It goes against their concept of honor. And my Ithakans will give the women and children safe conduct to neutral ships at the Bay of Herakles.”
“And why should I trust you, Odysseus, an enemy of Troy who paid an assassin to murder our kinsman Anchises?”
Odysseus struggled to hold his tongue. His pride tempted him to tell the prince the true story of Karpophorus and the plot to kill Helikaon, but he did not. It is Helikaon’s story, he thought. He will tell Hektor himself one day if he chooses.
He said, “It seems to me, lad, that you have no choice. I have delivered to you a way by which you could save the lives of hundreds of Trojan women and their children. If you turn your back and ride away now, you could never live with yourself. You are a man of honor. You could not be otherwise.”
Hektor nodded but said nothing. They sat for a long while as the darkness started to thicken and the air cooled.
Finally Hektor said, his voice strangely tight as if suppressing deep emotion, “You say I am a man of honor. Yet to me it seems that every day of my life is a lie and each word I speak a falsehood.”
“You are the most honest man I know,” Odysseus replied without hesitation.
Hektor gazed at him, and Odysseus could see the anguish in his eyes. “If you tell the same lie often enough for long enough, then it eventually can become the truth.”
Odysseus shook his head vehemently. “Truth and falsehood are two different beasts, as different as the lion and the lizard. They are complex animals, and they share many of the same features—they both have four legs, two eyes, and a tail. Yet you cannot mistake the one for the other. I know the truth when I see it, and I know the lie.”