Aleksandros sank to the ground. I saw the light go out of his eyes. But in that moment an arrow struck me in my left shoulder. Pain flared for an instant before I reacted automatically and shut it down. I pulled the arrow out, its barbed head tearing at my flesh. Blood spurted, but I consciously damped down those vessels and willed the wound to clot.
Even as I did so, the other Trojans came at me. But they stopped in their tracks as a great creaking groan of huge bronze hinges told me that the Scaean gate was swinging open at last. A roar went up and I turned to see chariots plunging through the open gate, bearing down directly on me.
The Trojans scattered and I dived out of the way. Agamemnon was in the first chariot. His horses pounded over Aleksandros’s dead body and the chariot bumped, then clattered on, chasing the fleeing Trojan warriors.
I stepped backward, dust from the charging chariots stinging my eyes, coating my skin, my clothes, my bloody sword. The battle lust began to ebb and I watched Aleksandros’s mangled body tossed and crushed by chariot after chariot. Lukka came up beside me, a gash on his cheek and more on both his arms. None of them looked serious, though.
“The battle is over,” he said. “The slaughter begins.”
I nodded, suddenly bone weary.
“You are hurt,” he saw.
“It’s not serious.”
He examined the wound, shaking his head and muttering. “It looks halfway healed already.”
“I told you it’s not serious.”
The men gathered around us, looking uneasy. Not frightened, but edgy, nervous.
“This is the time when soldiers collect their pay,” Lukka told me.
Loot, he meant. Stealing everything you can carry, raping the women, and then putting the city to the torch.
“Go,” I said, remembering that the first fires had been set by me. “I’ll be all right. I’ll see you back at the camp.”
Lukka touched his fist lightly to his chest, then turned to what was left of his men. “Follow me,” he commanded. “And remember, don’t take any chances. There are still plenty of armed men left alive. And some of the women will try to use knives on you.”
“Any bitch tries to cut me will regret it,” said one of the men.
“Any bitch who sees your ugly face will probably use her knife on herself!”
They all laughed and marched off together. I counted thirty-five of them. Seven had been killed.
For a while I stood there near the wall and watched Achaian chariots and foot soldiers pouring through the open, undefended gate. The smoke was getting thicker. I squinted up at the sky and saw that the sun had barely topped the wall. It was still early in the morning.
So it is done, I said to myself. Your city has fallen, Apollo. Your plans are ruined.
I felt no exultation, no joy at all. This is not revenge, I realized. Killing a thousand or so men and boys, burning down a city that had taken centuries to build, raping women and carrying them off into slavery — that is not triumph.
Slowly I pulled myself to my feet. The square was empty now, except for the mangled body of Aleksandros and the other slain men. Behind the first row of columned temples I could see flames rising into the sky, smoke billowing toward heaven. A sacrifice to the gods, I thought bitterly.
Raising my bloody sword over my head I cried out, “I want your blood, Golden One! Your blood!”
There was no answer.
I looked down at what was left of Aleksandros. We all die, prince of Troy. Your brothers have died. Your father is probably dying at this very moment. Some of us die many times. The lucky ones, only once.
Then a thought struck me, like a telepathic message beamed into my brain. Where is Helen, the beautiful Helen who was the reason for this slaughter, the calculating woman who had tried to use me as a messenger?
Chapter 20
I strode up the main street of burning Troy, sword in hand, through a morning turned dark by the smoke of fires I had started. Women’s screams and sobs filled the air, men bellowed and laughed raucously. The roof of a house collapsed in a shower of sparks, forcing me back a few steps. Perhaps it was the house I had slept in; I could not be sure.
Up the climbing avenue I walked, my face blackened with dust and soot, my arms spattered with blood — most of it Trojan. I saw that the gutter running along the center of the dirt street also ran red.
A pair of children ran shrieking past me, and a trio of drunken Achaians lurched laughingly after them. I recognized one of them: giant Ajax, lumbering along with a huge wine jug in one hand.
“Come back!” he yelled drunkenly. “We won’t hurt you!”
The children fled into the smoke and disappeared down an alley.
I climbed on, toward the palace, past the market stalls that now blazed hot enough to singe the hair on my arms, past a heap of bodies where some of the Trojans had tried to make a stand. Finally I reached the steps at the front of the palace. They too were littered with fallen bodies.
Sitting on the top step, leaning against one of the massive stone pillars, was Poletes. Weeping.
I rushed to him. “Are you hurt?”
“Yes,” he said, bobbing his old head. “In my soul.”
I almost felt relieved.
“Look at the desolation. Murder and fire. Is this what men live for? To act like beasts?”
“Yes,” I replied. Grabbing him by his bony shoulder, I said, “Sometimes men do act like beasts. Sometimes they behave like angels. They can build beautiful cities and burn them to the ground. What of it? Don’t try to make sense out of it, just accept us as we are.”
Poletes looked up at me through eyes reddened by tears and smoke. “So we should accept the whims of the gods, and dance their dance whenever they pull our strings? Is that what you tell me?”
“There are no gods, Poletes. Only vicious bullies who laugh at our pain.”
“No gods? That cannot be. There must be some reason for our existence, some order in the world.”
“We do what we have to do, old moralizer,” I said gruffly. “We obey the gods when we have no other choice.”
“You speak in riddles, Orion.”
“Go back to the camp, old man. This is no place for you. Some drunken Achaian might mistake you for a Trojan.”
But he did not move, except to lean his head against the pillar. I saw that its once-bright red paint was now blackened and someone had scratched his name into the stone with the point of a sword: Thersites.
“I’ll see you back at the camp,” I said.
He nodded sadly. “Yes, when mighty Agamemnon divides the spoils and decides how many of the women and how much of the treasure he will take for himself.”
“Go to the camp,” I said, more firmly. “Now. That’s not advice, Poletes, it is my command.”
He drew in a long breath and sighed it out, then raised himself slowly to his feet.
“Take this sign.” I handed him the armlet Odysseus had given me. “It will identify you to any drunken lout that wants to take off your head.”
He accepted it wordlessly. It was much too big for his frail arms, so he hung it around his skinny neck. I had to laugh at the sight.
“Laughter in the middle of the sack of a great city,” Poletes said. “You are becoming a true Achaian warrior, my master.”
With that he started down the steps, haltingly, like a man who really did not care which way he went.
I went through the columned portico and into the hall of statues, where Achaian warriors were directing slaves to take down the gods’ images and carry them off toward the boats. Into the open courtyard that had been so lovely I went. Pots were overturned and smashed, flowers trampled, bodies strewn everywhere staining the grass with their blood. The little statue of Athene was already gone. The big one of Apollo had toppled and broken into several pieces. I smiled grimly at that.