“Greetings to you, Kalos. I am Athenos, a friend to Odysseus.”
“You have a great many ships, Athenos, and a goodly number of men. This is a small settlement. There are only five whores and two eating houses. I fear there could be some unpleasantness if your men were allowed to roam free in the town.”
“Your point is well made, Kalos. I shall instruct my sailors to remain on the beach. Tell me, is there any news of Odysseus? I was to have met him and another allied fleet on Ithaka.”
Kalos shook his head. “We have not seen the Ugly King this year at all. The fleet of Menados passed through several days ago. There have been rumors of more Trojan raiding to the west.”
“Sadly true, I fear,” Helikaon said. “Pylos was attacked several days ago, the palace burned.”
The young militiaman was shocked. “No! That is grim news, sir. Is there no end to the vileness of these Trojans?”
“Apparently not. Where was Menados headed?”
“He did not share his plans with me, sir. He merely provisioned his fleet and set sail.”
“I hope his fleet was mighty. The attack on Pylos was said to have involved some fifty galleys.”
“There were at least eighty ships with Menados, though many of them were transports. He is a fine fighting sailor and has sunk many pirate vessels these last few seasons.” The young man was about to speak on, but Helikaon saw his eyes flicker to the left. Then they widened, and his expression changed. Helikaon glanced back. The last rays of the setting sun had illuminated the Xanthos. A poorly tied knot had slipped at the center of the sail brace, and the sail had loosened, showing the head of the black horse painted there. There were few around the Great Green who had not heard of the black horse of Helikaon.
Kalos backed away. Helikaon turned toward him and spoke swiftly, keeping his voice calm. “Now is not the time for rash action,” he said. “The lives of your men and your settlement are in your hands. You have friends here? Family?”
The young soldier stared at him with open hatred. “You are the Burner. You are accursed.”
“I am what I am,” Helikaon admitted, “but that does not change the lives that hang in the balance here. I can see in your eyes that you are a man of courage. You would not hesitate to walk the Dark Road in order to strike down an enemy. But what of the people you are sworn to protect? The old ones, the young ones, the babes in arms? Fight me here and all will die. Allow my men to rest here for the night, and we will sail away and trouble no one. By taking this wise course you will have honored your obligation to defend your people. No one will die; no homes will burn.”
The young man stood blinking in the fading light. Some of Helikaon’s men began to gather. The militiamen lifted their spears and grouped close, ready to fight.
“Back!” Helikaon ordered his warriors. “No blood will be spilled here. I have given my word to this brave young officer.” Returning his attention to Kalos, he looked into the man’s dark eyes. “Your choice, Kalos. Life or death for your people.”
“You will all remain on the beach?” the militiaman asked.
“We will. And you will ensure it by remaining with us. My cooks will prepare a fine meal, and we will sit and eat and drink good wine.”
“I have no wish to break bread with you, Helikaon.”
“And I have no wish to see you and your men vanishing over the hillside seeking reinforcements. You will stay with us. No harm will come to you.”
“We will not surrender our weapons.”
“Nor should you. You are not captives, nor have I requested your surrender. We are all, for this night, on this beach, neutrals. We will offer thanks and libations to the same gods before we eat, and we will talk as free men under a free sky. You can tell me of the vileness of the Trojans, and I can tell you of the day a Mykene raiding force attacked my lands and took a child of my house, set him aflame, and hurled him from a cliff. And then, as men of intellect and compassion, we will rail at the horrors of war.”
The tension eased, and cookfires were lit. Helikaon gathered the Mykene militiamen to him, and they sat together in awkward silence as the food was prepared. Wine was brought, though at first the Mykene refused it. As the uncomfortable night wore on, Oniacus was called upon to sing, and this time he did. Oniacus had a fine deep voice, and the songs he chose were rich and melancholy. Eventually the Mykene accepted wine and food and stretched out on the sand.
Helikaon set perimeter guards to patrol the beach and prevent any incursions into the settlement, then walked to the water’s edge. He was troubled, his mind unsettled.
Gershom joined him. “You did well, Golden One,” he said.
“Something is wrong,” Helikaon said. “Those men are not soldiers, and their cheap armor is new. They are villagers, hastily armed. Why would that be?”
“Troops from this area were needed elsewhere,” Gershom offered.
“So far from the war?” Kalos had spoken of the fleet of Menados and had said that many of his ships were transports. Those would be used to carry men and horses. An invasion force.
Yet his own fleet had spied no enemy ships, which meant they had hugged the coastline, moving east and north. This removed any thought of an attack on the lower eastern mainland of Lykia. The fleet of Menados was sailing along the Mykene coastline, bringing an army to where?
Up to Thraki to reinforce the armies facing Hektor? That was a possibility. Yet why would it be necessary? The armies of the Thessalian king, Peleus, could march into Thraki. Why denude the southern lands of soldiers and risk them at sea when it would be so much simpler for the northern allies to mount a land attack?
Then it came to him, and the impact of realization struck him like a blow to the belly.
Dardania! If Agamemnon could land an army across the Hellespont below Thraki, Hektor would be truly trapped. The citadel at Dardanos would be isolated, the few troops under an eighty-year-old general outnumbered and overcome. All the lands north of Troy would fall under Mykene domination.
Yet again, he realized with a sinking heart, he had fallen back into thinking of the grand design of falling fortresses and conquered lands. Halysia was at Dardanos and so was the child, Dex. The last time the Mykene had raided, she had been raped and stabbed, her son murdered before her eyes.
“At first light we head for home,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SONS OF SORROW AND JOY
The small fair-haired boy ran down the dusty corridor, his bare feet padding silently on the worn stones. At the end he turned to make sure Gray One had not caught up with him; then he lay quickly down and squirmed into a crevice in a dark corner.
The old fortress of Dardanos was a maze of corridors and tunnels and small holes only a three-year-old could squeeze into. He crawled through the crevice between the walls and out into the gloom of a waiting chamber, ran behind a dusty tapestry, then dashed across the empty room to the heavy oak door in the opposite wall. The door was not quite closed, and if he lay with his face pressed to the jamb, he could see into the great room beyond. He could not see Sun Woman, but he knew she would come, so he squatted more comfortably on the stone floor, his thin arms wrapped around his knees, and waited. He had learned a lot about waiting in his three short years.
He heard a wailing, screeching sound in the distance, which he knew was Gray One seeking him out. She would search the courtyard first. He chose a different hiding place each day, and Gray One was a slow old thing, always many steps behind him.