Part 17 (1/2)

”I'll listen to no calumnies about my wife,” Agamemnon warned.

But Poletes insisted, ”The High King is supposed to be the highest judge in the land, the fairest and most impartial. Everyone knows what is going on in Mycenae-ask anyone. Your own captive Ca.s.sandra, a princess of Troy, has prophesied...”

”Silence!” roared the High King.

”How can you silence the truth, son of Atreus? How can you turn back the destiny that fate has chosen for you?”

Now Agamemnon trembled, with anger. He hauled himself up from his chair and stepped down to the ground before Poletes.

”Hold him!” he commanded, drawing out the jeweled dagger at his belt.

The guards gripped Poletes's frail arms.

”I can silence you, magpie, by separating you from your lying tongue.”

”Wait!” I shouted, and pushed my way toward them.

Agamemnon looked up as I approached, his piggish little eyes suddenly worried, almost fearful.

”This man is my servant,” I said. ”I will punish him.”

”Very well then,” said Agamemnon, pointing his dagger toward the iron sword at my side. ”You take out his tongue.” take out his tongue.”

I shook my head. ”That is too cruel a punishment for a few joking words.”

”You refuse me?”

”The man's a storyteller,” I pleaded. ”If you take out his tongue you condemn him to starvation or slavery.”

Slowly, Agamemnon's flushed, heavy features arranged themselves in a smile. It was not a joyful one.

”A storyteller, eh?” He turned to Poletes, who knelt like a sagging sack of rags in the grip of the two burly guards. ”You only speak what you see and what you hear, you claim. Very well. You will see and hear-nothing! Ever again!”

My guts churned as I realized what he intended to do. I reached for my sword, only to find ten spears surrounding me, almost touching my skin.

A hand clasped my shoulder. I turned. It was Menalaos, his face grave. ”Be still, Orion. The storyteller must be punished. No sense getting yourself killed over a servant.”

Poletes was staring at me, his eyes begging me to do something. I moved toward him, only to be stopped by the points of the spears against my flesh.

”My wife has told me how you protected her during the sack of the temple,” Menalaos said, low in my ear. ”I owe you a debt of grat.i.tude. Don't force me to repay it with your blood.”

”Then run to Odysseus,” I begged him. ”Please. Perhaps he can soothe the High King's anger.”

Menalaos merely shook his head. ”It will all be over before I could reach the Ithacans' first boat. Look.”

Nestor himself carried a glowing brand from one of the pyres, a wicked, perverse smile on his aged face. Agamemnon took it from him as the guards yanked on Poletes's arms while one of them put a knee in his back. Agamemnon grabbed the old storyteller by the hair and pulled his head back. Again I felt the spear points piercing my clothes.

”Wander through the world in darkness, cowardly teller of lies.”

Poletes screamed in agony as Agamemnon burned out first his left eye and then his right. The old man fainted. The smile of a madman still twisting his thick lips, Agamemnon tossed the brand away, took out his dagger again, and slit the ears off the unconscious old man's head.

The guards dropped Poletes's limp body to the sand.

Agamemnon looked up and said in his loudest voice, ”So comes justice to anyone who maligns the truth!” Then he turned, grinning, to me. ”You can take your servant back now.”

The guards around me stepped back, but still held their spears leveled, ready to kill me if I moved on their king.

I looked down at Poletes's bleeding form, then up to the High King.

”I heard Ca.s.sandra's prophecy,” I said. ”She is never believed, but she is never wrong.”

Agamemnon's half-demented smile vanished. He glared at me. For a long wavering moment I thought he would command the guards to kill me on the spot.

But then I heard Lukka's voice calling from a little way behind me. ”My lord Orion, are you all right? Do you need help?”

The guards turned their gaze toward his voice. I saw that Lukka had brought his entire contingent, fully armed and ready for battle: thirty-five Hatti soldiers armed with s.h.i.+elds and iron swords.

”He needs no help,” Agamemnon answered, ”except to carry away the slave I have punished.”

With that he turned and hurried back toward his hut. The guards seemed to breathe one great sigh of relief and let their spears drop away from me.

I went to Poletes, picked up his bleeding, whimpering body, and carried him back to our own tents.

Chapter 23.

I tended Poletes through the remainder of that night. There was only wine to ease his pain, and nothing at all to ease the anguish of his mind. I laid him in my own tent, groaning and sobbing. Lukka found a healer, a dignified old graybeard with two young women a.s.sistants, who spread salve on his burns and the bleeding slits where his ears had been.

”Not even the G.o.ds can return his sight,” the healer told me solemnly, in a whisper so that Poletes could not hear. ”The eyes have been burned away.”

I knew what that felt like. I remembered my whole body being burned alive.

”The G.o.ds be d.a.m.ned,” I growled. ”Will he live?”

If my words shocked the healer, he gave no sign of it. ”His heart is strong. If he survives the night he will live for years to come.”

The healer mixed some powder into the wine cup and made Poletes drink. It put him into a deep sleep almost at once. His women prepared a bowl of poultice and showed me how to smear it over a cloth and put it on Poletes's eyes. They were silent throughout, instructing me by showing, rather than speaking, as if they were mute, and never dared to look directly into my face. The healer seemed surprised that I myself wanted to act as Poletes's nurse. But he said nothing and maintained his professional dignity.

I sat over the blinded old storyteller until dawn, putting fresh compresses over his eyes every half hour or so, keeping him from reaching up to the burns with his hands. He slept, but even in sleep he groaned and writhed.

Long after dawn had turned the sky a delicate pink, Poletes's breathing suddenly quickened and he made a grab for the cloth covering his face. I was faster, and gripped his wrists before he could hurt himself.

”My lord Orion?” His voice was cracked and dry.

”Yes,” I said. ”Put your hands down at your sides. Don't reach for your eyes.”

”Then it's true? It wasn't a nightmare?”