“It is superb.” The Mykene’s voice was awestruck.
“Who knows,” said Kygones, retrieving the blade, “I might be using it before long. But for now I will rest.”
The men bowed and walked to the door. “Ah!” the king called out. “A moment of your time, Helikaon.”
Argurios and Glaukos left the room. Helikaon waited in the doorway. Kygones indicated that he should shut the door and come back inside. “Sit down and let us talk awhile.”
“I thought you were tired, my friend.”
“The company of Mykene always tires me.” Lifting a pitcher of water, he filled his goblet. “They are an unpleasant people altogether. Hearts like lions, minds like snakes. Which is why I wanted to speak to you privately, although Argurios strikes me as a better man than most of his race.” Kygones looked closely at his guest. Helikaon’s face was pale, and there were lines of tension around his eyes. “Are you ill, my friend?”
“No. A little head pain. It is already passing.”
Kygones poured a fresh goblet of water and passed it to Helikaon. “Usually I have twice as many soldiers on hand when there are ships beached. However, the Hittites requested five hundred fighting men four days ago, and my troops are spread thin.”
“Five hundred? There are fears of an Egypteian invasion?”
“It has already happened. A Gyppto army is moving up through Palestine. They have pushed north. Hektor and a thousand Trojan cavalry have joined the Hittites to confront them. The fat Maeonian merchant saw them pass three days ago. Interesting times lie ahead. The world is about to change, I think. Too many kings. Too many armed men with no employment. The Hittite empire is in its death throes. Something will replace it.”
“Not Egypte,” said Helikaon. “They are wondrously equipped for desert warfare, but their troops are too lightly armed for battle in northern climes. And Hektor will not be defeated. The Trojan Horse are invincible in battle.”
“What of the Mykene?”
Helikaon looked surprised. “The Mykene empire is in the west. They do not have the ships, or the men, to invade the east.”
“Agamemnon is a man of new ambitions. However, that is not my most pressing problem at the moment. My immediate concern is the sea. The trading season is almost done, but I am wondering whether the Gypptos will try to land a force on my coast. It would be a fine diversion. To offset this threat I could use . . . say . . . ten galleys until the spring.”
Kygones smiled inwardly as he saw the Golden One’s expression change, his eyes narrowing, his mind weighing the cost. He would not want to lose the friendship of a powerful king, but equally he had no wish to find himself at odds with the power of Egypte. As a trader he needed access to Egypteian ports to sell cargoes of olive oil, decorated copper vessels, and Mykene jars. From those ports he would load Egypteian wares such as gold, salt, alabaster, and papyrus. Kygones leaned back. He knew what Helikaon was thinking. Such a raid, with its attendant disadvantages, was extremely unlikely, whereas leasing galleys and crews to Kygones would provide income during the lean winter months, when trading on the Great Green was minimal.
“Ten would not be enough to prevent an invasion,” Helikaon said suddenly.
“I have hired others. That is why Kolanos is here. His three galleys are now part of my fleet. I have other captains sailing here for the winter.”
“I will sell you ten ships,” said Helikaon. “They will then be yours to command as you see fit. I will buy them back in the spring for the same price—as long as they are undamaged. You must supply your own sails. The Black Horse of Dardanos will not be seen to take part in any war.”
“And the crews?”
“They will be like the Mykene, mercenaries. Your treasury will pay them fighting wages. One hundred copper rings for each man.”
“Pah! What if there is no fighting? Fifty rings a man.”
“Ten ships, ten crews, one hundred rings a man. Come, come, my friend, you know this is fair. You just cannot resist haggling.”
“Fair? Why don’t you just rip the shirt from my back and steal my boots, too?”
“I gave you those boots last spring.”
Kygones laughed. “So you did. Damned good boots they are, too. Very well, Helikaon, I will agree to seventy rings a man. But only because I like you.”
“What are you paying the Mykene?”
“Sixty.”
For a while Helikaon said nothing, his face becoming masklike, showing no emotion at all. Kygones cursed inwardly. He had spoken without thinking. The amount was correct, but it was too low and had aroused the Golden One’s suspicions. Then Helikaon appeared to relax. He shrugged. “Friends must not fall out over such matters,” he said. “Seventy rings it is. I will send the galleys from Troy.”
“Excellent! And now I really will take to my bed,” said the king. “May your travels be blessed with fine winds and fair skies.” As Kygones spoke, he realized he actually meant it. He had always liked Helikaon.
Such a shame that he had to die tonight.
XI
SWORDS IN THE MOONLIGHT
I
Leaving the apartments of Kygones, Helikaon walked back through the megaron, where the remains of the food were being cleared away. He looked around for Zidantas, then summoned a servant. “Did you see my companion, the big man with the forked beard?”
“No, lord.”
Moving on, he asked several others. Finally a stoop-shouldered servant with watery eyes supplied an answer. “I saw him talking to Captain Galeos, then he left.”
“Where will I find Captain Galeos?”
Following the man’s directions, Helikaon left the megaron and emerged onto an outside terrace. The night air was crisp with the promise of rain, and a cool wind was blowing from the sea. Helikaon paused to stand by the walkway rail and gaze down at the beach. Fires were still burning, but most of the sailors, who would be working hard from dawn’s first light, were asleep. Many of the stalls were covered by canvas sheets, with their owners, wrapped in blankets, sitting by them, watching for thieves. As he stood breathing in the sweet air, Helikaon thought through the events of the night.
It had been surprising that the Mykene had tried to kill him on the Fat King’s beach. Kygones was not a forgiving man. Transgressors had their throats cut. The second attack, so close to the palace, bordered on the stupid, or at least that was what he had thought.
Now he knew otherwise. Kygones had hired the Mykene to patrol his waters, and he had done so cheaply. The moment Kygones let slip the price, Helikaon knew he had been betrayed. Mykene fighting men like Kolanos did not sell their services without receiving a good blood price. They would earn more by piracy and raiding. They had accepted sixty rings because something larger and more valuable had been offered to balance the fee.
His own life.
Everything fell into place then. The loss of five hundred men to the Hittite army would not have depleted Kygones’ force so greatly as to reduce the number of men patrolling the beach. And even if it had, there still would have been soldiers around the crowd when Odysseus told his tale. In fact there had been none.
Also, there had been too few torches on the cliff path and no soldiers there, either.
Kygones needed no extra galleys. He had merely delayed Helikaon so that Argurios and Glaukos would return without him. There was now no need to find the captain of the guard. Helikaon knew what had happened. Zidantas had been told Helikaon was staying the night at the palace. Ox therefore had returned to the beach.
The crowning moment of the betrayal had been when Kygones had deprived Helikaon of his only weapon. He felt his anger rise not at Kygones but at himself. How could he have been so foolish? All the clues had been there, and he had not seen them. He stood for a while until the anger passed, and he began to think more clearly. Kolanos would have sent more men to wait on the cliff path, so either he remained where he was until the dawn or he found another way down. At first the thought of staying at the palace seemed
the more obvious solution. Surely Kygones would not risk angering Troy by actively participating in the death of one of its allies. Yet as he thought it through, he realized he could be killed in the palace and his body dumped on the cliff path. Kygones might already have issued orders to trusted men.
Once on the beach, surrounded by his own men, Helikaon would be safe. But how to get there?
II
The Mykene warrior Kolanos had never been a patient man. The night was almost gone, and his men had not returned. Donning sword and helmet, he walked swiftly along the beach, following the line of the cliffs toward the path. The moon emerged from behind a thin screen of clouds. He saw then that his tunic was spattered with blood, spray patterns dotting the pale fabric. There also was blood on his hands. Pausing, he scooped up some sand to rub them clean.
Most of the sailors on the beach were asleep except for a few sitting around fading campfires playing knucklebone dice. To his right was the Xanthos campfire. He saw Argurios sitting there, staring out at the sea.
Anger flared. He had never liked the man. His notions of honor were ludicrous. Enemies were to be killed by whatever means. How he could have defended Helikaon was a mystery Kolanos would never understand. When Agamemnon heard of it, he would be furious. And Kolanos would ensure that the king did hear of it. Argurios might revel in his role as a Follower now, but he would be stripped of that honor. With luck, depending on Agamemnon’s mood, he also might be declared outside the law, his estates forfeit and a blood price on his head. Irritation touched him then. That would be too much to hope for. Argurios, for all his stupid clinging to the rituals of the past, was still a Mykene hero.
Kolanos strode up the cliff path. Near the top, almost within sight of the palace gates, he found the five men he had assigned to kill Helikaon. They were half-hidden in the shadows of a deep cleft in the rock. Kolanos approached them.
The bulky form of Habusas the Assyrian stepped into the moonlight. “No sign of him, lord,” he said.
“Has anyone passed?”
“A few sentries. Some whores.”
Kolanos moved back into the shadows. Habusas followed him, keeping his voice low. “Maybe he stayed the night.”
“If he does, Kygones will have him killed and his body thrown to the beach. Let us hope he comes. I want to see the bastard’s face when my knife rips out his eyes.”
“Someone coming!” whispered one of the men.
Kolanos peered through the gloom. A soldier wearing a conical helmet and carrying a club on his shoulder was strolling down from the palace.
“Go and ask him about Helikaon,” Kolanos ordered.
Habusas called out to the man and then walked across. They spoke for a little while, and Habusas returned.
“He said the Trojan went back to the king’s apartments. That’s all he knew.”
Kolanos glanced at the sky. There was no more than an hour of darkness left. “We’ll wait a while longer,” he said.
Time drifted by. Kolanos’ irritation grew. Had Kygones changed his mind? Had he decided not to kill Helikaon?
Then Habusas lightly tapped his arm and pointed up the trail. A man wearing a dark chiton had emerged from the palace gates and was beginning the walk down to the beach.
“Grab him and pin his arms,” said Kolanos, drawing his knife.
As the figure came closer, Habusas stepped out, blocking the way. Other men moved around the startled newcomer, hustling him to stand before Kolanos.
His dark hair was close-cropped, his face heavy and fleshy. Kolanos swiftly sheathed his blade. “Where did you get that tunic?” he asked roughly, recognizing the gold embroidery around the neck and sleeves. Instead of answering, the man turned to run. Habusas and two of the Mykene grabbed him and hauled him back to face Kolanos.
“I asked you a question. Answer it!”
“From the Trojan prince, lord.”
“Why did he give you his garment?”
“We exchanged clothes. I am a soldier of the king. He said he wanted to play a joke on his friends and borrowed my uniform and my club. He said I could come down to the beach tomorrow and he would return everything.”
Bile rose in Kolanos’ throat. Stepping back, he looked at Habusas. “Send this man to the beach. By the fast route.”
The Mykene dragged the struggling soldier to the cliff edge. In desperation he clawed at them. Habusas punched him twice, half stunning him. Kolanos ran in, knife in hand, and plunged the blade through the man’s chest, then dragged it clear. Mortally wounded, the soldier fell to his knees. The Mykene rushed in and kicked him from the cliff edge. His body plummeted down to the rocks below.
The sky was growing lighter.
“No more knives in the dark,” said Kolanos. “We will take him at sea.”
III
Helikaon stepped off the cliff path and strode across the rocky sand. He was tired but elated by the fact that he had fooled the Mykene. Kolanos himself had been waiting there in the dark with five of his men. It was a great compliment that they believed such force would be necessary.
The conical helmet slid sideways on his head, for he had not tightened the chin straps, and the bronze-reinforced leather breastplate was too large and was chafing the skin of his shoulders. He felt clumsy as he walked across the beach toward the Xanthos fire. Then he stumbled, the strap of his right sandal snapping. Kicking it clear, he walked on.
Most of the men were asleep when he approached. Pulling off the helmet, he tossed it to the sand and then unbuckled the breastplate.
Oniacus saw him. “You were better dressed when you set out,” he volunteered.
“Long day tomorrow; you should be sleeping,” Helikaon told him, then strolled off to the Xanthos. He climbed onto the rear deck. Two men were sleeping there, a third keeping watch. Helikaon opened a deck hatch and stepped down into the Stygian gloom below. He found his chest more by feel than by sight and lifted the lid. Reaching in, he felt around for a spare tunic, then returned to the upper deck and removed the soldier’s calf-length linen garb. Donning his own clothes once more, he looked back at the palace.
It was a surprise that Kygones should have betrayed him. Not that they were friends, but the business they conducted together was profitable, and for the Fat King to collude in his murder he must have been offered a huge sum. No pirate could have afforded to bribe the king, not even Kolanos. No, the riches would have been promised on behalf of Agamemnon. Helikaon could make no sense of it. More than a year had passed since he had killed Alektruon, and he had done nothing since to offend the Mykene king. However, the reason for Agamemnon’s new enmity was secondary now. The real question was: How many other kings on the trade routes had been offered a fortune to conspire in his death? How many pirate chiefs? Or assassins?
His own father, Anchises, had been slain by such a man—and mutilated. The killer had slashed a sharp blade across the king’s throat and then cut off his ear. How he had entered the palace remained a mystery. No guards had reported seeing a stranger, though one man had said he saw a shadow move on the high eastern wall. He had assumed it was a trick of the light.
Even now, nine years later, Helikaon still had agents scouring the towns and cities of the Great Green seeking clues to the assassin and the man who had hired him.
Movement caught Helikaon’s eye. The Mykene galleys were being pushed back into the water, and he saw the blond Kolanos standing on the beach. The Mykene looked up, and their eyes met.
“Enjoy your day, Golden One!” shouted Kolanos. “It will be one to remember.”
Helikaon ignored him and continued to watch as the Mykene crewmen swarmed aboard their vessels. The three black galleys were long and sleek, each with fifty rowers positioned on the upper decks. Bronze-headed rams had been fitted to the prows. Kolanos was the last to wade out into the surf and haul himself aboard his ship. Huge red eyes had been painted on the timbers of the upcurved prow, giving the galley a demonic appearance.
As the ships moved out into the
bay, the rowers leaned in to their oars and the crews began to dismantle the masts. Helikaon knew then that they would be waiting for the Xanthos outside the bay. Galleys were more maneuverable in battle with their masts down. And they wanted him to know; otherwise they would have left their masts up until they were out of sight.
It was a challenge and one that could not be ignored.
Kolanos had every reason to believe the day would be his. The Mykene galleys were smaller and faster than the Xanthos, and he had three times as many fighting men.
But he did not know of the genius of Khalkeus, the Madman from Miletos.
The sun cleared the eastern cliffs, turning the sky to coral and gold.
Striding back along the central deck, Helikaon climbed to the stern and gazed down on the beach, scanning the faces of his men.
Where in Hades is Ox? he thought.
XII
THE GATHERING STORM
I
An hour earlier Andromache had climbed the long cliff path, thinking of the seer who had predicted her destiny. Odysseus had been right: The man had not been entertaining. Yet how had he known she was a priestess of Thera? Perhaps, she thought, I should have called out to the man with one sandal. She smiled. To discover what? That he was a farmer’s son from the low country or married with seven noisy children? She walked on, her spirits lighter. The conversation with Odysseus had been more than pleasant. It was like water on a parched tongue to meet someone of wit and intelligence who was also warm and amusing. The Fat King had a mind like a dagger, but there was no humanity in him—or none that she could perceive.
As she climbed the path, she found herself thinking of the blue-eyed man who had been attacked. He had been about to speak to her when the knifeman had charged in. Andromache wondered what he was going to say. Would it have been a gentle greeting or merely a coarse request for sex on the sand? She would never know.