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Blood was crusted on my sword arm, my legs, spattered across my tunic.
"You fought very well," Odysseus said. "For a few moments there I thought we would force the gate and
enter the city at last."
I shook my head wearily. "We can't force a gate that is defended. It's too easy for the Trojans to hold
the narrow opening."
Odysseus nodded agreement. "Do you think your Hatti troops can really build a machine that will allow
us to scale their walls?"
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"They claim they have done it before, at Ugarit and elsewhere."
"Ugarit," Odysseus repeated. He seemed impressed. "I will speak with Agamemnon and the council.
Until Achilles rejoins us, we have no hope of storming one of their gates."
"And little hope even with Achilles," I said.
He looked at me sternly, but said nothing more.
Poletes was literally jumping up and down on his knobby legs when I returned to the camp.
"What a day!" he kept repeating. "What a day!"
As usual, he milked me for every last detail of the fighting. He had been watching from the top of the
rampart, of course, but the mad melee at the gate was too far and too confused for him to make out.
"And what did Odysseus say at that point?" he would ask. "I saw Diomedes and Menalaos riding side
by side toward the gate; which of them got there first?"
He set out a feast of thick barley soup, roast lamb and onions, flat bread still hot from the clay oven, and
a flagon of unadulterated wine. And he kept me talking with every bite.
I ate, and reported to the storyteller, as the sun dipped below the western sea's edge and the island
mountaintops turned gold, then purple, and then faded into darkness. The first star gleamed in the
cloudless violet sky, so beautiful that I understood why every culture named it after its love goddess.
There was no end of questions from Poletes, so finally I sent him to see what he could learn for himself
of Achilles's condition. Partly it was to get rid of his pestering, partly to soothe a strange uneasiness that
bubbled inside me. Achilles is doomed, a voice in my head warned me. He will not outlive Hector by
many hours.
I tried to dismiss it as nonsense, battle fatigue, sheer nerves. Yet I sent Poletes to find out how bad his
wound really was.
"And find Lukka and send him to me," I called to his retreating back.
The Hatti officer looked grimly amused when he came to my fire and saluted by clenching his fist against
his breast.
"Did you see the battle?" I asked.
"Some of it."
"What do you think?"
He made no attempt to hide his contempt. "They're like a bunch of overgrown boys tussling in a town
square."
"The blood is real," I said.
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"Yes, I know. But they'll never take a fortified city by storming defended gates."
I agreed.
"There are enough good trees on the other side of the river to build six siege towers, maybe more,"
Lukka said.
"Start building one. Once the High King sees that it can be done, I'm sure he'll grasp the possibilities."
"I'll start the men at first light."
"Good."
"Sleep well, sir."
I almost gave a bitter laugh. Sleep well, indeed. But I controlled myself enough to reply, "And good
sleep to you, Lukka."
Poletes came back soon after, his face solemn in the dying light of our fire, his gray eyes sad.
"What's the news?" I demanded as he sank to the ground at my feet.
"My lord Achilles is finished as a warrior," said Poletes. "The arrow has cut the tendon in the back of his
heel. He will never walk again without a crutch."
I felt my mouth tighten grimly.
Poletes reached for the wine, hesitated, and cast me a questioning glance. I nodded. He poured himself
a heavy draft and gulped at it.
"Achilles is crippled," I said.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Poletes sighed. "Well, he can live a long life back in Phthia.
Once his father dies he will be king, and probably rule over all of Thessaly. That's not so bad, I think."
I nodded agreement, but I wondered how Achilles would take to the prospect of a long life as a cripple.
As if in answer to my thoughts, a loud wail sprang up from the Myrmidones's end of the camp. I jumped
to my feet. Poletes got up more slowly.
"My lord Achilles!" a voice cried out. "My lord Achilles is dead!"
I glanced at Poletes.
"Poison on the arrowhead?" he guessed.
I threw down the wine cup and started off for the Myrmidones. All the camp seemed to be rushing in the
same direction. I saw Odysseus's broad back, and huge Ajax outstriding everyone with his long legs.
Spear-wielding Myrmidones guards held back the crowd at the edge of their camp area, allowing only
the nobles to pass them. I pushed up alongside Odysseus and went past the guards with him. Menalaos,
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Diomedes, Nestor, and almost every one of the Achaian leaders were gathering in front of Achilles's hut.
All but Agamemnon, I saw.
We went inside, past weeping soldiers and women tearing their hair and scratching their faces as they
screamed their lamentations.
Achilles's couch, up on a slightly raised platform at the far end of the hut, had turned into a bier. The
young warrior lay on it, left leg swathed in oil-soaked bandages, dagger still gripped in his right hand, a
jagged red slash from just under his left ear to halfway across his windpipe still dripping bright red blood.
His eyes stared sightlessly at the mud-chinked planks of the ceiling. His mouth was open in a rictus that
might have been a final smile or a grimace of pain.
Odysseus turned to me. "Start your men building the siege tower."
I nodded.
Chapter 17
ODYSSEUS and the other leaders headed for Agamemnon's hut for a council of war. I went back to
my own tent. The camp was wild with the news: Achilles dead by his own hand. No, it was a poisoned
arrow. No, a Trojan spy had done it. No, the god Apollo had slain him personally in vengeance for killing
Hector and then despoiling his body.
The god Apollo.
I crawled into my tent and stretched out on the straw pallet. Lacing my fingers behind my head, I thought
that for once Iwanted to sleep, I wanted to go into that other existence and meet the Creators again. I
had things to tell them, questions to ask, answers to demand.
But how could I pass through to their dimension? The Golden One had brought me to them. I could not
do it myself.
Or could I? Closing my eyes, I cast my thoughts back to the "dreams" I had gone through before. I
slowed their moments down to ultra slow-motion in my mind, stretching each second into hours, peering
deeper and deeper into the scene until I could almost visualize the individual atoms that made up our
bodies and see them scintillating and vibrating in their eternal dance of energy.
A pattern. I sought a pattern. There must be some arrangement of energies, some alignment of particles, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]