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“Make allowance for the local troops’ natural exaggerations,” he said, reaching for the wine pitcher, “and we have nothing more than a few hundred barbarians to deal with.”

“While we have more than a thousand trained men,” said the prince.

Raseth nodded. “It’s simply a matter of finding the barbarians and hitting them before they can scatter or get back to their ships.”

I thought of the Achaian camp along the beach at Troy. I wondered if Odysseus or Big Ajax would be among my enemies.

“The horses and chariots are coming up on the supply ships,” Raseth was muttering to no one in particular. “In a few days’ time we will be ready to strike.”

I looked at him from across the supper table. “Strike where? Are you certain the barbarians will still be in the villages where they were seen several days ago?”

Raseth scratched at his chin. “Hmm. They could move off elsewhere in their ships, couldn’t they?”

“Yes. Using the sea, they could move quickly across the breadth of the delta and strike a hundred miles away before we know they’ve pulled out.”

“Then we need scouts to keep watch on them,” said Aramset.

The general beamed at his young prince. “Excellent!” he roared. “You will make a fine conquering general one day, your highness.”

Then they both turned to me. Raseth said, “Orion, you and your Hittites will scout the villages where the barbarians were last seen. If they have gone, you will return here and tell us. If they are still there, you will keep them under observation until the main body of our army arrives.”

Before I could say anything, Prince Aramset added, “And I will go with you!”

The general shook his blunt, bullet-shaped head. “That is far too great a risk to take, your highness.”

Especially if I’m betrayed to Menalaos by one of Nekoptah’s spies, I thought. Was Raseth working for Nekoptah? What secret orders did he carry in his head?

Prince Aramset was not pleased at being balked. “My father sent me on this expedition to learn of war. I will not sit in the rear safely while others are doing the fighting.”

“When the fighting commences, your highness, you will be by my side,” General Raseth said. “Those are my instructions.” He added, “From the king’s own lips.”

Aramset was taken aback. But only for a moment. “Well, in the meantime, I can accompany Orion and his men on this scouting mission.”

“I cannot allow that, sir,” the general replied.

The youngster turned to me. “I’ll stay beside Lukka. He won’t let any harm come to me.”

As gently as I could, I replied, “But what harm may come to Lukka, when he has you to look after and neglects his other duties?”

The prince stared at me, his mouth open to answer, yet no words coming forth. He was a goodhearted youth, and he genuinely loved Lukka. His only problem was that he was young, and like all young men, he could not visualize himself being hurt, or maimed, or killed.

Raseth took advantage of the prince’s silence. “Orion,” he said, his voice suddenly deep with the authority of command, “you will take your men overland to the villages where the barbarians were last seen, and report their movements to me by sun-mirror. You will leave tomorrow at dawn.”

“And me?” the prince asked.

“You will stay here with me, your highness. The chariots and horses will soon arrive. There will be battle enough to satisfy any man within a few days.”

I nodded grim agreement.

It was a two-day march from the riverbank where our boat had tied up to the coastal village where the black-hulled Achaian ships lay pulled up on the beach.

The land was flat and laced with irrigation canals, but the fields were broad enough to allow chariot warfare, if you did not mind tearing up the crops growing in them. Lukka had the men camp along the edge of one of the larger canals, by a bridge that could easily be held by a couple of determined men or, failing that, burned so that pursuers would have to either wade across the canal or find the next bridge, a mile or so away.

Then he and I crossed the bridge and made our way through the fields of knee-high wheat, tossing in the breeze, until we came to the edge of the village. It lay along the beach, and I saw dozens of small fishing boats tied up to weathered wooden piers. The Achaian warships were up on the sand, tents and makeshift shacks dotted around them, smoke from cook fires sending thin tendrils of gray toward the sky.

Despite the breeze coming in from the sea, the morning was hot, and the sun burned on our backs as we lay at the edge of the wheat field and watched the activity in the village. None of the ships bore the blue dolphin’s head of Ithaca, and I found myself happy that Odysseus was not there.

“There’s only eight ships here,” said Lukka.

“Either the others have moved on to other villages, or they’ve returned to Argos.”

“Why would some of them return and leave the others here?”

“Menalaos seeks his wife,” I said. “He won’t return without her.”

“He can’t fight his way through all of Egypt with a few hundred men.”

“Perhaps he’s waiting for reinforcements,” I said. “He may have sent his other ships back to Argos to bring the main body of Achaian warriors here.”

Lukka shook his head. “Even with every warrior in Argos he wouldn’t be able to reach the capital.”

“No,” I admitted, speaking the words as the ideas formed in my mind. “But if he can cause enough destruction here in the delta, where most of Egypt’s food is grown, then he might be able to force the Egyptians to give him what he wants.”

“The woman?”

I hesitated. “The woman — for his pride. And something more, I think.”

Lukka gave me a quizzical look.

“Power,” I said. “His brother Agamemnon has taken control of the straits that lead to the Sea of Black Waters. Menalaos seeks to gain similar power here in Egypt.”

It sounded right to me. It had to be right. My whole plan depended on it.

“But how do you know those are Menalaos’s ships?” the ever-practical Lukka asked. “Their sails are furled, their masts down. They might be the ships of some other Achaian king or princeling.”

I agreed with him. “That is why I’m going into the Achaian camp tonight — to see if Menalaos is truly there.”

Chapter 40

IF Lukka objected to my plan, he kept his doubts to himself. We returned to our camp by the canal, ate a small meal while the sun set, and then I started back to the village and the Achaian camp.

The villagers seemed to be living with the invading barbarians without friction. They had little choice, of course, but as I picked my way through the darkness I sensed none of the tenseness of a village under occupation by a hostile force. None of the mud-brick houses seemed burned. There were no troops posted to guard duty anywhere. The villagers seemed to have retired to their homes for a night’s rest without worrying about their daughters or their lives.

There were no signs of a battle having been fought, nor even a skirmish. If anything, the Achaians seemed to have set up a long-term occupation here. They had not come for raping and pillaging. They had something more permanent in mind.

Good, I thought. So did I.

I made my way down the shadowy streets of the village, twisting and twining under the cold light of a crescent moon. The wind was warm now, blowing from landward, making the palms and fruit trees sigh. Somewhere a dog barked. I heard no cries or lamentations, no screams of terror. It was a quiet, peaceful village — with a few hundred heavily armed warriors camped along the beach.

Their campfires smoldered in front of each ship. A line of chariots, their yoke poles pointing starward, rested on the far side of the camp, near the rude fencing of the horse corral. A few men slept on the ground, wrapped in blankets, but most of them were inside their tents or the rude lean-tos they had constructed. A trio of guards loafed at the only fire that still blazed. They seemed relaxed rather than alert, like men who had been posted guards as a matter of form, rather than for true security.