“And Egypt?”
She sighed. “It’s so far away. And traveling has been much more difficult than I thought it would be.”
“Perhaps we could get a boat and sail to Egypt,” I suggested. “It would be much swifter and easier than overland.”
Her eyes brightened. “Of course! There are hundreds of boats in the harbor.”
But when we went to the dock, all thoughts of boats fled from our minds. We saw six galleys stroking into the harbor, all of them bearing a picture of a lion’s head on their sails.
“Menalaos!” Helen gasped.
“Or Agamemnon,” I said. “Either way, we can’t stay here. They’re searching for you.”
Chapter 26
WE fled Ephesus that night, leaving a very disappointed innkeeper who had looked forward to us staying much longer.
As we rode up into the hills and took the southward trail, I wondered if we could not have appealed to the city’s council for protection. But the fear of the armed might of the Achaians who had just destroyed Troy would have paralyzed the Ephesians, I realized. Their city had no protective walls and no real army, merely a city guard for keeping order in the bawdier districts; it depended on the good will of all for its safety. They would not allow Helen to stay in their city when Menalaos and his brother Agamemnon demanded her surrender.
So we pushed on, through the rains and cold of winter, bearing our booty from Troy. A strange group we were: the fugitive Queen of Sparta, a blind storyteller, a band of professional soldiers from an empire that no longer existed, and an outcast from a different time.
We came to the city of Miletus. Here there were walls, strong ones, and a bustling commercial city.
“I was here once,” Lukka told me, “when the great High King Hattusilis was angry with the city and brought his army to its gates. They were so frightened that they opened their gates and offered no resistance. They threw themselves upon the High King’s mercy. He was magnificent! He slew only the city’s leaders, the men who had displeased him, and would not allow us to touch even an egg.”
We bought fresh provisions and mounts. Miletus would be the last major city on our route for some time. We planned to move inland, through the Mountains of the Bull and across the plain of Cilicia, then along the edge of the Mittani lands and down the Syrian coastline.
But the sounds and smells of another Aegean city were too much for Poletes. He came to me as we started to break our camp, just outside the city walls, and announced that he would not go on with us. He preferred to remain in Miletus.
“It is a city where I can tell my tales and earn my own bread,” he said to me. “I will not burden you further, my lord Orion. Let me spend my final days singing of Troy and the mighty deeds that were done there.”
“You can’t stay by yourself,” I insisted. “You have no house, no shelter of any kind. How will you find food?”
He reached up for my shoulder as unerringly as if he could see. “Let me sit in a corner of the marketplace and tell the tale of Troy,” he said. “I will have food and wine and a soft bed before the sun goes down.”
“Is that what you truly want?” I asked him.
“I have burdened you long enough, my lord. Now I can take care of myself.”
He stood there before me in the pale light of a gray morning, a clean white scarf over his eyes, a fresh tunic hanging over his skinny frame. I learned then that even blinded eyes can cry. And so could I.
We embraced like brothers, and he turned without another word and walked slowly toward the city gate, tapping his stick before him.
I sent the others off on the inland road, telling them I would catch up later. I waited half the day, then entered the city and made my way to the marketplace. Poletes sat there cross-legged in the middle of a large and rapidly growing throng, his arms gesturing, his wheezing voice speaking slowly, majestically: “Then mighty Achilles prayed to his mother, Thetis the Silver-Footed, ‘Mother, my lifetime is destined to be so brief that ever-living Zeus, sky-thunderer, owes me a worthier prize of glory…’ ”
I watched for only a few minutes. That was enough. Men and women, boys and little girls, were rushing up to join the crowd, their eyes fastened on Poletes like the eyes of a bird hypnotized by a snake. Rich merchants, soldiers in chain mail, women of fashion in their colorful robes, city magistrates carrying their wands of office — they all pressed close to hear Poletes’s words. Even the other storytellers, left alone once Poletes had started singing of Troy, got up from their accustomed stones and ambled grudgingly across the marketplace to listen to the newcomer.
Poletes was right, I reluctantly admitted. He had found his place. He would be fed and sheltered here, even honored. And as long as we were far away, he could sing of Troy and Helen all he wanted to.
I went back to the city gate, where I had left my horse with the guards there. I handed their corporal a few coppers, and nosed my chestnut mount up the inland trail. I would never see Poletes again, and that made me feel the sadness of loss.
But time and distance softened my sadness, blurred it into a bittersweet memory of the cranky old storyteller.
Lukka led us across a steep and snowy mountain pass and down into the warm and fruitful Cilician plain, where wine grapes, wheat, and barley grew and olive trees dotted the countryside.
The Cilician cities were tightly shut against all strangers. The collapse of the Hatti empire was felt here; instead of depending on imperial law and the protection of the Hatti army, each city had to look to its own safety. We bartered for what we needed with farmers and suspicious villagers, then headed eastward across the plain and finally turned south, keeping the sea always at our right.
I noticed that Helen looked over her shoulder often, searching as I did for signs of pursuit. We scanned the sea, as well, whenever we could see it. None of the sails we spotted bore a lion’s head.
On the road we slept apart. It was better discipline for the men, I thought. I did not take her to bed unless we were in a town or city where the men could find women for themselves. I realized that my passion for Helen was controllable, and therefore not the kind of love that I had for my dead goddess.
Gradually, she began to tell me of her earlier life. She had been abducted when barely twelve, whisked away from the farm of an uncle on the saddle of a local chieftain who had taken a fancy to her newly budding beauty. Her father had bribed the grizzled old bandit and he surrendered her unharmed, but the incident convinced her father that he would have to marry off his daughter quickly, while she was still a virgin.
“Every princeling in Achaia sought my hand,” she told me one night when we were camped in a little village ringed by a palisade of sharpened stakes. The village chief had decided to be hospitable to our band of armed men. Lukka and his men were being entertained by some of the local women. Helen and I had been offered a small hut of mud bricks. It was the first time we had been under a roof in weeks.
She spoke wistfully, almost sadly, almost as if all that had happened to her had somehow been her own fault. “With so many suitors, my father had to be very careful in his choice. Finally he picked Menalaos, brother of the High King. It was a good match for him; it tied our house to the most powerful house in Argos.”
“You had no say in the matter?”
She smiled at such an absurd idea. “I didn’t see Menalaos until our wedding day. My father kept me well protected.”
“And then Aleksandros,” I said.
“And then Aleksandros. He was handsome, and witty, and charming. He treated me as if I were a person, a human being.”