Fall of Kings (37 page)

“We have a hold full of it, Cousin.”

Hektor sighed with relief. “Your mad bronzesmith Khalkeus tells me he can
cast strong swords from the metal of Ares, but he has yet to show me one.
Meanwhile, our forges are dark. We could not contine the fight without your
cargo. Let them unload with all speed, and we will speak.”

He gestured, and from the darkness emerged men leading donkey carts. Some of
the newcomers swarmed up ropes onto the deck of the
Xanthos.
There were
quiet words of greeting as old friends met again; then the hold doors were
opened, and they started unloading the precious metal. Hektor led Helikaon and
Andromache a short way across the flat marsh to where a small hillock hid a
glowing campfire. The three sat down. Hektor undid his cloak, and Andromache
could see that he was garbed in full armor.

“The news we hear from Troy is grave,” Helikaon said. “Antiphones and Paris
both dead. And poor Helen.”

“What of her children?” Andromache asked.

Hektor shook his head, and his silence told them everything. In the light
from the fire, Andromache could see he had aged ten years since she last had
seen him. His eyes sat in dark hollows, and sorrow and grief seemed permanently
etched on his features. He rubbed his hands over the fire. He seemed lost in
thought for a while; then he shivered as if bitter memories were returning to
plague him.

He shook his head and said, “Never in my worst nightmares did I believe
Agamemnon could field so many warriors.” For a while he paused, his face
haunted. “Have you heard how we lost the battle for the Scamander? The treachery
of the Fat King and his Lykians won the day for the western kings. After that
the enemy took the fortification ditch quickly, within a day. They swarmed over
it. They had the scent of victory in their nostrils, and we were hampered by
trying to save our wounded.

“We have defended the lower town now for ten days, forcing Agamemnon’s armies
to battle for every wall, the smallest flagstone, every bloodstained pace. There
has been carnage on both sides. But all the while they were fighting to win the
town, they could not surround the great walls, and we could get women and
children out and your cargo in. This was our hope. Now you are here, and with
the protection of Athene we will smuggle the tin into the city tonight. The
forges will all be at work before dawn.

“Then,” Hektor said, looking at them, “tomorrow night, under cover of
darkness, we will pull our troops back, retreat behind the walls, leave the
enemy the lower town, and seal the gates.”

There was shocked silence. Then Andromache said, “But you have always
believed Troy under siege would be doomed.”

Hektor nodded and stared at his hands, then started rubbing them together
again, as if he could not get warm. “But I was a younger man then,” he said
ruefully, “who had not seen the horrors I have seen. I always feared treachery.
Our history and yours, Helikaon, tells us there is always a traitor. But now we
are sealing the great gates. The West and East gates have been bricked up. Only
the Scaean Gate will be left open, and the Dardanian Gate. And those can only be
opened on my personal command or Polites’.”

“Polites?” Helikaon asked, frowning.

Hektor sighed. “With Dios dead and Antiphones, too, Father… Father can no
longer be trusted to make decisions about the war. You have missed a great deal
in the season you have been away.

“From today Polites is in charge of the defense of Troy. I will not go back
there tonight. And at dawn tomorrow the Trojan Horse will ride from the Golden
City, never to return until Agamemnon destroys her or gives up the fight.”

Helikaon nodded his understanding, but Andromache said, “The Trojan Horse
abandon Troy? Why?”

Hektor explained gently. “We cannot be trapped in the city, Andromache.
Cavalry is useless there, and we will not be able to feed the horses if the
siege goes on through the summer. Water will also be in short supply. The Trojan
Horse must be free to attack the enemy where they least expect it, destroy
Agamemnon’s supply lines, seek out his weakest links and slice through them.”

Helikaon said, “I see that they must leave the city. But must you go with
them, Cousin? If you stay in Troy, you will give the people heart. Polites is a
good man, but he cannot inspire with his leadership as you can. You are the
heart and soul of Troy. You are needed there. Put Kalliades in charge of the
Horse. He has a fine strategic mind.”

“I have thought long and hard about it,” Hektor admitted. “But there will be
nothing for me to do in a siege. I need to do the one thing I am good at.” He
paused and sighed. “I can fight, and I can kill. I cannot do that behind high
walls.”

Helikaon opened his mouth to speak again, but Hektor held up his hand. “My
choice is made, Helikaon. The walls are impregnable. Polites will have to decide
on rationing, the care of the wounded, and the safety of the gates. He will be
better at all that than I.”

He looked at them, from one to the other. “But you must leave as soon as
possible, both of you, once the ship is unloaded. Helikaon, the
Xanthos
is like the Trojan Horse. She can do little stuck in the bay, but she is
priceless to our cause on the open seas, attacking Agamemnon’s supply routes,
sinking his ships. The name of the
Xanthos
spreads terror among all
seafaring men. You must make Agamemnon fear what is happening behind him and
force the kings to quarrel as they lose ships and their supplies run out. The
longer this goes on, the more each king will worry about what is going on at
home, which leader is rising to take his place and assassinate his family.”

Helikaon drew a deep breath, but he nodded agreement. “Menados will not
expect me to sail again so quickly.” He glanced at the sky, where there was a
glimmer of light in the east. “We might get out again before dawn.”

Hektor told him, “The Trojan fleet has orders to go with you. It is under
your command. Sink as many of Menados’ ships as you can. But they fear your fire
hurlers and will probably run.”

“We are low on
nephthar,
” Helikaon said.

“We have brought you two wagons full.” Hektor smiled a little. “With great
care.”

He stood up and said, “May Poseidon look kindly upon you both.”

“He always has,” Helikaon said.

Andromache looked from one to the other of them, anger rising in her breast.
“You speak as if all decisions have been made. But I decide my own future! I am
not going with you,” she said to Helikaon. “I will return to the city, as
planned, and to my son.”

Hektor leaned down toward her and took her hand, pulling her to her feet.

“Escape while you can, Andromache,” he said. “I beg you! Go with the
Xanthos.
There is a good chance that all these men”—he gestured to the
riverbank and the men hard at work unloading the tin—“will be dead by the
morning. We have pushed our luck to the breaking point getting out of the city
tonight. If we smuggle this tin into the city, to the forges where it is needed,
it will mean Athene is truly smiling on us.” The shadows around his eyes
deepened. “And her face has been turned away from Troy in recent times.”

She felt anger rising in her. “And where would I go, Hektor?”

“To Thera or to your father in Thebe. It is no longer under attack.”

She shook her head. “No, I cannot. Agamemnon wants me dead. We have more than
enough evidence of that. I bring danger with me wherever I go. If Troy falls,
Agamemnon will feel free to do anything he wants, even attack Thera and its
sisterhood. If there is any safety for me, however ephemeral, it is in Troy. And
Astyanax is there.”

Helikaon added, “And my son, Dex, is there. Why could you not get them out of
the city, Hektor? You said women and children were being smuggled out.”

Hektor sighed. “Priam would not let the boys leave. They are together in the
palace now. Father says that as heirs to Troy and Dardanos they will be safest
in Troy. Or rather, they will be more unsafe anywhere else. This is your
argument, my love.” He looked at Andromache, one eyebrow raised. “And it is a
good one.”

“It is true,” she admitted. “Agamemnon will hunt them both down. He is right,
Helikaon. Dex will stay with Astyanax and me. I will take care of him.”

The three stood, and as they walked slowly back to the riverbank, Helikaon
told Hektor, “Menados has a new ship, a great bireme almost as big as the
Xanthos.
”

“I know of it,” Hektor said. “It is called the
Alektruon.
A cursed
name. It has not the heart of the
Xanthos.
It is just a hollow copy.”

“And it was not built by the Madman from Miletos,” Helikaon replied grimly.
“It will break apart when Poseidon swims.”

On the
Xanthos,
unloading was complete. Hektor turned to them both and
said, “I fear we three will not meet again this side of the Dark Road. This is a
story with no good endings.”

Andromache took his hand. “We will meet again, Hektor. I know it.”

He smiled. “Is this a prophecy, Andromache?”

“You know I am not given to prophecies, visions, or prescient dreams. I am
not Kassandra. I just know in my bones that this is not the end.” She kissed his
hand gently. “Until we meet again, my husband.”

She caught the expression on Helikaon’s face, and she felt as if her heart
were being wrenched in two. She was standing with the two men she loved yet was
to lose them both within moments. And she could not say a proper goodbye to
either of them. Looking into Hektor’s shadowed eyes, she felt the familiar stab
of guilt that she could never love him as he deserved. And under Helikaon’s
intense blue gaze she hated herself for hurting him by choosing to stay with her
son.

Her heart in pain, she turned her eyes toward the distant city hidden by the
night. One thing was certain: There would be more grief for them all before the
end.

When dawn arrived, the
Xanthos
still was making her way back along the
narrow Simoeis. Heliakon stood at the steering oar and watched for signs from
Oniacus at the prow. The growing light behind them put the river ahead of the
ship in deep shadow, and Oniacus was using a long notched pole to test the depth
of the water. Progress was slow, and Helikaon had long since given up on his
first idea of attacking the Mykene fleet before sunrise.

He tried to keep his mind on plans for the battle ahead, but his thoughts
kept straying back to Andromache. The moment he first had glimpsed her so long
before on that ill-starred night at Bad Luck Bay, his heart had been ensnared.
Until then he always had told friends that he would marry for love alone. Until
then, though, he had had no idea what love was. And arrogantly, he had believed
the choice of marriage always would be his. He never had dreamed he would fall
helplessly in love with someone who was unavailable, already betrothed to his
closest friend. The gods watch for such arrogance with glee, he thought.

In many ways these last hundred days had been the happiest of his life. The
Xanthos
was his true home, the one place where he could find total
contentment. To share it with the woman he loved had been a pearl beyond price.
There had been times that winter, as they sailed from island to island in fair
weather or foul, as he watched Andromache sitting at the prow gazing at the sea,
walking like a flame-haired goddess among the oarsmen handing out waterskins, or
crouched by the mast holding on tightly as the ship plowed through rough seas,
when he had thought he could never be happier. She was his north star, the fixed
point around which his world turned. For as long as his heart beat, or hers, he
believed they would share a destiny.

He had not expected to lose her so suddenly that night, to watch her walk
away beside one of the donkey carts into the darkness on a perilous journey to
the beleaguered city. She had made her choice and decided to stay with Hektor’s
son. She had not looked back. He had not expected her to.

As the sun rose, a beam of light speared through the mist and lit up the
ships of the Trojan fleet waiting where the river Simoeis opened out into the
bay. They lay as if becalmed in the pale morning, sails furled, the rowers
resting on their oars, waiting for action. We are fighting the greatest war the
world has ever seen, Helikaon thought, and our likely future is death and ruin,
and you are thinking about the woman you love instead of making battle plans. If
this is what love can do to a man, perhaps you were better off without it.

He smiled to himself. I do not believe that, he thought.

He handed the steering oar to the helmsman and strode to join Oniacus on the
central deck. “Gather the captains of the Trojan ships,” he told him. “We have
much to discuss.”

“I will ask them to join us, Golden One,” Oniacus replied. He turned away,
then came back hesitantly. “It is rumored,” he said, “that some of the the
Mykene ships now have their own fire hurlers.”

Helikaon laughed. “Good news at last!” he said.

Oniacus looked mystified. “They will have no battle experience and little
practice, Oniacus,” Helikaon explained. “We know how dangerous the
nephthar
balls are, and we treat them with great respect. In the heat of battle the
Mykene will likely do more damage to themselves than to our vessels. This is
welcome tidings. Just wait and see, my friend.”

It took a while for the captains of the eighteen Trojan ships to gather. The
smaller ships eased in toward the
Xanthos
until their masters could climb
on board, sometimes crossing over several adjacent ships to get there. As he
looked at the mass of vessels lying together and bumping gently against one
another, a new plan formed in Helikaon’s mind.