Then came the men. One by one they were led to the blood-soaked altar, made to kneel and bow their heads. The lucky ones died in a single stroke. Many were not so fortunate.
By the time it was ended and the pyres were lit, the priests were covered with blood and the camp stank of entrails and excrement. As the sun went down the pyres blazed across the darkening landscape, sending up smoke that was thought to be pleasing to the gods.
Then the whole camp swarmed toward Agamemnon’s boats, in the center of the beach, where the spoils of Troy had been heaped high. Hundreds of women and children stood near the pile of loot, guarded by a grinning handful of warriors.
Agamemnon climbed up onto a beautifully carved chair pillaged from the city. It had been set up on a makeshift platform, to turn it into a rough sort of throne. Then he began to divide the spoils, so much to each chieftain, starting with white-bearded old Nestor.
The Achaians crowded around, greed and envy shining in their eyes. I stayed by Odysseus’s boat and watched from afar. I noticed that Lukka and his men stayed with me.
“Your own goods are safe?” I asked him.
He grunted affirmatively. “They wanted to take our women for the High King to divide out, but we convinced them to leave us alone.”
I almost smiled, picturing Lukka and his disciplined soldiers forming a phalanx against a gaggle of hung-over Achaian warriors.
Far into the night the ceremony went. Agamemnon parceled out bronze armor and weapons, gold ornaments, beautiful urns and vases, porphyry and onyx, glittering jewels, kitchen implements of copper, iron tripods and cooking pots, robes, silks, blankets, tapestries — and women, young boys and girls.
Half of everything he kept for himself: the High King’s prerogative. But as some of the chieftains and men passed me, carrying their loot back to their boats, I heard them complain of the High King’s meanness.
“He’s got the generosity of a dung beetle.”
“He knew we had done the hardest fighting, up on the wall. And what do we get for it? Less than his brother.”
“Those women should have been ours, I tell you. The fat king is too greedy.”
“What can you do? He takes what he wants and we get his leavings.”
I thought that even Odysseus looked less than pleased when he approached me. The pyres smoldered in the distance, but our campfires lit his darkly bearded face with flickers of red.
“Orion,” he called to me. I went to him.
“Your servant Poletes is digging a grave for himself,” Odysseus said. “He is mocking the High King’s generosity.”
I looked into Odysseus’s dark eyes. “Isn’t everyone?” I asked mildly.
His answering smile told me how he felt. “But not everyone is speaking so loosely within earshot of Nestor and Menalaos and others who will report his words to Agamemnon. You’d better see to it. The old storyteller is swimming in dangerous waters.”
“Thank you, my lord. I will see to it.”
I hurried over toward Agamemnon’s part of the camp, passing a stream of disgruntled Achaians toting their loot.
Poletes was sitting on the sand by a small campfire, practically under the nose of one of the High King’s boats, surrounded by a mob of squatting, standing, grinning, laughing Achaian men. None of them were of the nobility. Off in the shadows, though, I noticed Nestor standing with his skinny arms folded across his chest, frowning in Poletes’s direction.
“…and do you remember when Hector drove them all back inside our own gates, here, and he came in with an arrow barely puncturing his skin, crying like a woman, ‘We’re doomed! We’re doomed!’ ”
The crowd around the fire roared with laughter. I had to admit that the old storyteller could mimic Agamemnon’s high voice almost perfectly.
“I wonder what Clytemnestra will do when her brave and noble husband comes home?” Poletes grinned. “I wonder if her bed is high enough off the ground to hide her lover?”
Men rolled on the ground with laughter. Tears flowed. I started to push my way through the crowd to get to him.
But I was too late. A dozen armed men tramped in, and Poletes’s audience scrambled out of their way. I recognized Menalaos at their head.
“Storyteller!” he snapped. “The High King wants to hear what you have to say. Let’s see if your scurrilous tales can make him laugh.”
Poletes’s eyes went wide with sudden fear. “But I only…”
Two of the armed guards grabbed him under his armpits and hauled him to his feet.
“Come along,” said Menalaos.
I stepped in front of him. “This man is my servant. I will take care of him.”
Before Menalaos could reply, Nestor bustled up. “The High King has demanded to see this teller of tales. No one can interfere!” It was the shortest speech I had ever heard the old man make.
With a small shrug, Menalaos headed off toward Agamemnon’s quarters, his guards dragging Poletes after him, followed by Nestor, me, and all of the men who had been rollicking at the storyteller’s gibes.
Agamemnon still sat on his makeshift throne, fat, flushed with wine, flanked by the treasures of Troy. His chubby fingers gripped the chair arms as he eyed Poletes being hauled before him. Rings glittered on each finger and both his thumbs.
The old storyteller knelt trembling before the High King, who glared down at his skinny, shabby presence.
“You have been telling lies about me,” Agamemnon snarled.
Poletes drew himself together and lifted his chin to face the High King. “Not so, your royal highness. I am a professional storyteller. I do not tell lies, I speak only of what I see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears.”
“You speak filthy lies!” Agamemnon screamed, his voice rising shrilly. “About my wife!”
“If your wife were an honest woman, sire, I would not be here at all. I’d be in the marketplace at Argos, telling stories to the people, as I should be.”
“I’ll listen to no calumnies about my wife,” Agamemnon warned.
But Poletes insisted, “The High King is supposed to be the highest judge in the land, the fairest and most impartial. Everyone knows what is going on in Mycenae — ask anyone. Your own captive Cassandra, a princess of Troy, has prophesied…”
“Silence!” roared the High King.
“How can you silence the truth, son of Atreus? How can you turn back the destiny that fate has chosen for you?”
Now Agamemnon trembled, with anger. He hauled himself up from his chair and stepped down to the ground before Poletes.
“Hold him!” he commanded, drawing out the jeweled dagger at his belt.
The guards gripped Poletes’s frail arms.
“I can silence you, magpie, by separating you from your lying tongue.”
“Wait!” I shouted, and pushed my way toward them.
Agamemnon looked up as I approached, his piggish little eyes suddenly worried, almost fearful.
“This man is my servant,” I said. “I will punish him.”
“Very well then,” said Agamemnon, pointing his dagger toward the iron sword at my side. ” Youtake out his tongue.”
I shook my head. “That is too cruel a punishment for a few joking words.”
“You refuse me?”
“The man’s a storyteller,” I pleaded. “If you take out his tongue you condemn him to starvation or slavery.”
Slowly, Agamemnon’s flushed, heavy features arranged themselves in a smile. It was not a joyful one.
“A storyteller, eh?” He turned to Poletes, who knelt like a sagging sack of rags in the grip of the two burly guards. “You only speak what you see and what you hear, you claim. Very well. You will see and hear — nothing! Ever again!”