I actually reach for the baby, my fingers with their dirty nails just inches away from his pink flesh, before drawing back.
I can’t do it.
I can’t do it.
Stunned by my own impotence even in the face of doom—everyone’s doom, for even the Greeks will be punished through their victory—I stagger out of the nursery, not even bothering to pull the Hades Helmet back on.
I put my hand on the QT medallion, but pause. Where do I go? Whatever Achilles is doing, it doesn’t really matter now. He can’t conquer Olympos on his own, or even with the Achaean army if the Trojans are still at war with them. In fact, my little charade with the man-killer may have been for nothing—Hector and his hordes may beat the Achaeans this very morning while Achilles is still ripping his hair out and screaming in grief over Patroclus’ apparent murder. Achilles doesn’t give a damn about the Trojans right now. And when Hector and the mystery man Athena promised Achilles—to lead him to Hector, she said, to show him how to get to Olympos—don’t come to him, will he know that my act was only an act? Probably. Then the real Athena will visit Achilles to see what’s wrong and will protest her innocence to the fleet-footed man-killer, and perhaps—just perhaps—the Iliad will get back on track.
It doesn’t matter.
This whole idiot plan is finished. So is Thomas Hockenberry, Ph.D. Past time, probably.
But where to go until the violent Muse or the reawakened Aphrodite finally find me? Go visit Nightenhelser and pissed-off Patroclus? See how long it takes the gods to track my quantum trail once they understand what I’ve done . . . tried to do?
No. That would just bring doom down on Nightenhelser. Let him stay there in 1200 b.c. Indiana and procreate with the lovely Indian maidens, perhaps start a university and teach classics—although most of the classical tales haven’t happened yet—and good luck to him about Patroclus, whom I have no urge to taser again just to drag back to Achilles’ tent. “April fool!” I could have my three-minute-morph Athena say. “Here’s your friend back, Achilles. No hard feelings?”
No, I’ll leave them alone there in Indiana.
Where to go? Olympos? The thought of the Muse hunting for me there, of Zeus and his radar eyes returning, of Aphrodite awakening . . . well, not to Olympos. Not tonight.
I think of one place and visualize it and touch the QT medallion and twist it and go there before I can change my mind.
I’m visible and Helen sees me at once in the soft light of candles. She rises on one arm on her cushions and says, “Hock-en-bear-eeee?”
I stand in her bedchamber and say nothing. I don’t know why I’m here. If she calls her guards or even comes toward me with that dagger, I feel too tired to fight, too tired even to flee on the QT. I don’t even think to wonder why her bedchamber is illuminated by candles at four-thirty in the morning.
She comes toward me, but not with the dagger. I’d forgotten how beautiful Helen of Troy is—her svelte, soft figure in the transparent gown making Scamandrius’ busty nurse look just lumpy and squat by comparison. “Hock-en-bear-eeee?” she says softly, with that sweet pronunciation of my name, so difficult to say in Ancient Greek. I almost weep as I realize that she’s the only human being on Earth, except for Nightenhelser—who may be dead by now—who knows my name. “Are you hurt, Hock-en-bear-eeee?”
“Hurt?” I manage. “No. I’m not hurt.”
Helen leads me into the bathing room adjoining her bedchamber. This is where I first saw her that night. Candles are lighted here as well, there is water in a basin, and I see my reflection—red-eyed, stubble-cheeked, exhausted. I realize that I haven’t really slept for . . . how long? I can’t remember. “Sit,” says Helen, and I collapse onto the ledge of a marble bathtub. “Why have you come, Hock-en-bear-eeee?”
Stumbling with words, I say, “I tried to find the fulcrum,” and go on to explain my useless charade with Achilles, the kidnap of Patroclus, my plan to turn the heroes of the war against the gods to save . . . everyone, everything.
“But you did not kill Patroclus?” says Helen, her dark eyes intense.
“No. I just took him . . . elsewhere.”
“Using the gods’ method of travel,” says Helen.
“Yes.”
“But you could not spirit away Astyanax, Hector’s son, this way?”
I shake my head dumbly.
I see Helen thinking, her beautiful dark eyes lost in reverie. How can she believe my explanations? Who in the hell does she think I am? Why had she befriended me before—“befriended” being somewhat of a euphemism for that long night of passion—and what will she do with me now?
As if to answer that last question, Helen rises with a grim look in her eye and goes out of the bathing room. I hear her calling names in the hallway and know that the guards will be back with her in less than a minute, so I raise my hand to the heavy QT medallion.
I can’t think of anywhere to go.
I have charge left in my taser baton, but I don’t reach for it as Helen returns with several others. But not guards—serving girls. Slaves.
A minute later they are undressing me, stacking my filthy garments by the wall as other young women bring in tall pitchers of steaming hot water for the bath. I let them take the morphing bracelet off me, but I cling to the QT medallion. I shouldn’t get it wet, but I don’t want it out of my reach.
“You are going to bathe, Hock-en-bear-eeee,” says Helen of Troy. She lifts a short, gleaming razor blade. “And then I am going to shave you myself. Here, drink this. It will restore your energy and spirits.” She hands me a goblet with a thick liquid inside.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nestor’s favorite drink,” laughs Helen. “Or it was when the old fool used to visit my husband, Menelaus. It restores.”
I sniff it, knowing that I’m being boorish. “What’s in it?”
“Wine, grated cheese, and barley,” says Helen, lifting the goblet closer to my lips by moving my cupped hands upward. Her fingers look very white against my sun-darkened and dirty skin. “But I also add honey to sweeten it.”
“So does Circe,” I say, laughing stupidly.
“Who, Hock-en-bear-eeee?”
I shake my head. “Never mind. It’s in the Odyssey. Doesn’t matter. Irreli . . . irrele . . . irrelevant and immaterial.” I drink. The liquid has the punch of a Missouri mule. I wonder idly if there any mules in Missouri circa 1200 b.c.
The young servant girls have stripped me naked, having me stand to pull off my tunic and underthings. I don’t even think to be embarrassed. I’m too tired and the drink has given my brain a distinct buzz.
“Bathe, Hock-en-bear-eeee,” says Helen and offers me her arm to hold as I step into the deep and steaming bath. “I will shave you in the bath.”
The water’s so hot that I cringe like a child, lowering myself carefully, hesitating to let the steaming water touch my scrotum. But I do—I’m too tired to fight gravity—and when I lean back against the slanted marble back of the tub, Helen’s servants lathering my whisker-stubbled cheeks and neck, I don’t even worry about Helen handling the razor’s blade so close to my eyes and jugular. I trust her.
Feeling Nestor’s drink giving me energy again, deciding that if Helen offers me her bed I’ll definitely ask her to share it with me in this last hour or so before dawn, I close my eyes for just a moment. Just a few seconds.