"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 Ca.s.sandra, 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. "You take out his tongue." take 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!"

My guts churned as I realized what he intended to do. I reached for my sword, only to find ten spears surrounding me, almost touching my skin.

A hand clasped my shoulder. I turned. It was Menalaos, his face grave. "Be still, Orion. The storyteller must be punished. No sense getting yourself killed over a servant."

Poletes was staring at me, his eyes begging me to do something. I moved toward him, only to be stopped by the points of the spears against my flesh.

"My wife has told me how you protected her during the sack of the temple," Menalaos said, low in my ear. "I owe you a debt of grat.i.tude. Don't force me to repay it with your blood."

"Then run to Odysseus," I begged him. "Please. Perhaps he can soothe the High King's anger."

Menalaos merely shook his head. "It will all be over before I could reach the Ithacans' first boat. Look."

Nestor himself carried a glowing brand from one of the pyres, a wicked, perverse smile on his aged face. Agamemnon took it from him as the guards yanked on Poletes's arms while one of them put a knee in his back. Agamemnon grabbed the old storyteller by the hair and pulled his head back. Again I felt the spear points piercing my clothes.

"Wander through the world in darkness, cowardly teller of lies."

Poletes screamed in agony as Agamemnon burned out first his left eye and then his right. The old man fainted. The smile of a madman still twisting his thick lips, Agamemnon tossed the brand away, took out his dagger again, and slit the ears off the unconscious old man's head.

The guards dropped Poletes's limp body to the sand.

Agamemnon looked up and said in his loudest voice, "So comes justice to anyone who maligns the truth!" Then he turned, grinning, to me. "You can take your servant back now."

The guards around me stepped back, but still held their spears leveled, ready to kill me if I moved on their king.

I looked down at Poletes's bleeding form, then up to the High King.

"I heard Ca.s.sandra's prophecy," I said. "She is never believed, but she is never wrong."

Agamemnon's half-demented smile vanished. He glared at me. For a long wavering moment I thought he would command the guards to kill me on the spot.

But then I heard Lukka's voice calling from a little way behind me. "My lord Orion, are you all right? Do you need help?"

The guards turned their gaze toward his voice. I saw that Lukka had brought his entire contingent, fully armed and ready for battle: thirty-five Hatti soldiers armed with shields and iron swords.

"He needs no help," Agamemnon answered, "except to carry away the slave I have punished."

With that he turned and hurried back toward his hut. The guards seemed to breathe one great sigh of relief and let their spears drop away from me.

I went to Poletes, picked up his bleeding, whimpering body, and carried him back to our own tents.

Chapter 23.

I tended Poletes through the remainder of that night. There was only wine to ease his pain, and nothing at all to ease the anguish of his mind. I laid him in my own tent, groaning and sobbing. Lukka found a healer, a dignified old graybeard with two young women a.s.sistants, who spread salve on his burns and the bleeding slits where his ears had been.

"Not even the G.o.ds can return his sight," the healer told me solemnly, in a whisper so that Poletes could not hear. "The eyes have been burned away."

I knew what that felt like. I remembered my whole body being burned alive.

"The G.o.ds be d.a.m.ned," I growled. "Will he live?"

If my words shocked the healer, he gave no sign of it. "His heart is strong. If he survives the night he will live for years to come."

The healer mixed some powder into the wine cup and made Poletes drink. It put him into a deep sleep almost at once. His women prepared a bowl of poultice and showed me how to smear it over a cloth and put it on Poletes's eyes. They were silent throughout, instructing me by showing, rather than speaking, as if they were mute, and never dared to look directly into my face. The healer seemed surprised that I myself wanted to act as Poletes's nurse. But he said nothing and maintained his professional dignity.

I sat over the blinded old storyteller until dawn, putting fresh compresses over his eyes every half hour or so, keeping him from reaching up to the burns with his hands. He slept, but even in sleep he groaned and writhed.

Long after dawn had turned the sky a delicate pink, Poletes's breathing suddenly quickened and he made a grab for the cloth covering his face. I was faster, and gripped his wrists before he could hurt himself.

"My lord Orion?" His voice was cracked and dry.

"Yes," I said. "Put your hands down at your sides. Don't reach for your eyes."

"Then it's true? It wasn't a nightmare?"

I held his head up slightly and gave him a sip of wine. "It is true," I said. "You are blind."

The moan he uttered would have wrenched the heart out of a marble statue.

"Agamemnon," he said, many moments later. "The mighty king took his vengeance on an old storyteller. As if that will make his wife faithful to him."

"Try to sleep," I said. "Rest is what you need."

He shook his head, and the cloth slid off, revealing the two raw burns where his eyes had been. I went to replace the cloth, saw that it was getting dry, and smeared more poultice on it from the bowl at my side.

"You might as well slit my throat, Orion. I'll be of no use to you now. No use to anyone."

"There's been enough blood spilled here," I said.

"No use," he muttered as I put the soothing cloth over the place where his eyes had been. Then I propped his head up again and gave him more wine. Soon he fell asleep again.

Lukka stuck his head into the tent. "My lord, King Odysseus wants to see you."

I ducked out into the morning sunshine. Commanding Lukka to have a man stand watch over the sleeping Poletes, I walked over to Odysseus's boat and clambered up the rope ladder that dangled over its curving hull.

The deck was heaped with treasure looted from Troy. I turned from the dazzling display to look back at the city. Hundreds of tiny figures were up on the battlements, pulling down its blackened stones, working under the hot sun to level the walls that had defied the Achaians for so long.

I had to step carefully along the gunwale to avoid tripping over the piles of treasure covering the deck. Odysseus was at his usual place on the afterdeck, standing in the bright sunshine, his broad chest bare, his hair and beard still wet from his morning swim, a pleased smile on his thickly bearded face.

Yet his eyes searched mine as he said, "The victory is complete, thanks to you, Orion." Pointing at the demolition work going on in the distance, "Troy will never rise again."

I nodded grimly. "Priam, Hector, Aleksandros-the entire House of Ilios has been wiped out."

"All but Aeneas the Dardanian. Rumor had it that he was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Priam's. We haven't found his body."

"He might have been burned in the fire."

"It's possible," said Odysseus. "But I don't think he's terribly important. If he lives, he's hiding somewhere nearby. We'll find him. Even if we don't, there won't be anything left here for him to return to."

As I watched, one of the ma.s.sive stones of the parapet by the Scaean gate was pulled loose by a horde of men straining with levers and ropes. It tumbled down to the ground with a heavy cloud of dust. Moments later I heard the thump.

"Apollo and Poseidon won't be pleased at what's being done to their walls."

Odysseus laughed. "Sometimes the G.o.ds have to bow to the will of men, Orion, whether they like it or not."

"You're not afraid of their anger?"

"If they didn't want us to pull down the walls, we wouldn't be able to do it."

I wondered. The G.o.ds are subtler than men, and have longer memories. I knew that Apollo was angry with me. How would his anger display itself?

"It's your turn to select your treasure from the spoils of the city," Odysseus said. He gestured toward a large pile of loot at the stern of the boat. "Take one-fifth of everything you see."

I thanked him, and spent an hour or so picking through the stuff. I selected blankets, armor, clothing, weapons, helmets, and jewels that could be traded for food and shelter.

"The captives are down there, between the boats. Take one-fifth of them, also."

I shook my head. "I'd rather have horses and donkeys," I told Odysseus. "The children will be useless to us, and the women will merely cause fighting among my men."

Odysseus eyed me carefully. "You speak like a man who has no intention of sailing to Ithaca with me."

"My lord," I said, "you have been more than generous to me. But no man in this camp raised a hand to help my servant last night. Agamemnon is a cruel and vicious animal. If I returned to your land, I would soon be itching to start a war against him."

Odysseus muttered, "That would be foolish."

"Perhaps so. Better that our paths separate here and now. Let me take my men, and my blinded servant, and go my own way."

The King of Ithaca stroked his beard for several silent moments, thinking it over. Finally he agreed. "Very well, Orion. Go your own way. And may the G.o.ds smile upon you."

"And on you, n.o.blest of all the Achaians."

I never saw Odysseus again. When I returned to my tent, I told Lukka to send the men to pick up the loot I had chosen, and to find horses and donkeys to carry it-and us: I saw questions in his eyes, but he did not ask them. Instead he went to carry out my orders.

As the sun began to sink behind the islands on the western horizon, and we gathered around the cook fire for the final meal of the day, a young messenger came running up to me, breathless.

"My lord Orion, a n.o.ble visitor wishes words with you."

"Who is it?" I asked.

The teenager spread both hands. "I don't know. I was instructed to tell you that a n.o.ble of the royal house will visit you before the sun goes down. You should be prepared."

I thanked him and invited him to share our meal. He seemed extraordinarily pleased to sit side by side with the Hatti soldiers. His eyes studied their iron swords admiringly.

A n.o.ble visitor from the royal house. One of Agamemnon's people? I wondered who was coming, and why.

As the long shadows of sundown began to merge into the purple of twilight, a contingent of six Achaian warriors marched toward our campfire, with a small, slim warrior in their midst. Either a very important person or a prisoner, from the look of it, I thought. The man in the middle seemed too small for any of the Achaian n.o.bles I had met. He wore armor buckled over a long robe, and had pulled the cheek flaps of his helmet across his face, as if going into battle. I could not see his face.

I stood and made a little bow. The mini-procession marched right up to my tent before stopping. I went to the tent and pulled open the flap.

"A representative of the High King?" I asked. "Come to make certain that the old storyteller is truly blind?"

The visitor said nothing, but ducked inside the tent. I went in after him, feeling a seething anger rising in me. I had not slept in two days, but my smoldering fury at Agamemnon kept me awake and alert.

The visitor looked down at Poletes, lying on the straw pallet asleep, a greasy cloth across his eyes, the slits where his ears had been caked with dried blood. I heard the visitor gasp. And then I noticed that his hands were tiny, delicate, much too smooth to have ever held a sword or spear.

I grasped the visitor by the shoulders, swung him around to face me, and pulled off the helmet. Helen's long golden hair tumbled past her shoulders.

"I had to see..." she whispered, her eyes wide with fright.

I spun her around to face the prostrate old storyteller. "Then see," I said gruffly. "Take a good look."