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down the walls of Troy."
The old man was predicting an earthquake. A big one. All the more reason for us
to get as far away as possible.
We forded the river and headed southward. Toward Egypt.
BOOK II: JERICHO
Chapter 25
AS Lukka had predicted, our journey was neither easy nor peaceful. The whole
world seemed in conflict. We trekked slowly down the hilly coastline, through
regions that the Hatti soldiers called Assuwa and Seha. It seemed that every
city, every village, every farmhouse was in arms. Bands of marauders prowled the
countryside, some of them former Hatti army units just as Lukka's contingent
was, most of them merely gangs of brigands.
We fought almost every day. Men died over a brace of chickens or even an egg. We
lost a few of our men in these skirmishes, and gained a few from bands that
offered to join us. I never accepted anyone that Lukka would not accept, and he
took in only other Hatti professionals. Our group remained at about thirty men,
a few more or less, from one month to the next.
I kept searching anxiously to our rear, every day, half expecting to see
Menalaos leading his forces in pursuit of his wayward queen. But if the Achaians
were following after us, I saw no sign. And I slept at nights without being
visited by Apollo or Zeus or any of their kind. Perhaps they were busy
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elsewhere. Or perhaps whatever fate they had prepared for me was waiting in
Egypt, inside the tomb of a king.
The rainy season began, and although it turned roads into quagmires of slick,
sticky mud and made us miserable and cold, it also stopped most of the bands of
brigands from their murderous marauding. Most of them. We still had to fight our
way through a trap in the hills just above a city that Lukka called Ti-Smurna.
And Lukka himself was nearly killed by a farmer who thought we were after his
wife and daughters. Stinking and filthy, the farmer had hidden himself in his
miserable hovel of a barn nothing more than a low cave that he had put a gate
to and rammed a pitchfork at Lukka's back when he went in to pick out a pair of
lambs. It was food we were after, not women. We had paid the farmer's wife with
a bauble from the loot of Troy, but the man had concealed himself when he had
first caught sight of us, expecting us to rape his women and burn what we could
not carry off.
He lunged at Lukka's unprotected back, murder in his frightened, cowardly eyes.
Fortunately I was close enough to leap between them, knocking the pitchfork away
with my arm.
The farmer expected to be killed by inches, but we left him trembling, kneeling
in the dung of his animals. Lukka said little, as usual, but what he said spoke
volumes.
"Once again I owe you my life, my lord Orion."
I replied lightly, "Your life is very important to me, Lukka."
I did not sleep with Helen. I hardly touched her. She traveled with us as part
of our group, without complaining of the hardships, the bloodletting, the pain.
She made her own bed at night, out of horse blankets, and slept slightly
separated from the men. But always closer to me than anyone else. I was content
to be her guardian, not her lover. If that surprised her, she gave no hint of
it. She wore no jewels and no longer painted her face. Her clothes were plain
and rough, fit for traveling rather than display.
Still she was beautiful. She did not need paints or gowns or jewelry. Even with
her face smudged by mud and her hair tied up and tucked under the cowl of a long
dirty cloak, nothing could hide those wide blue eyes, those sensuous lips, that
unblemished skin.
Poletes gained strength and even some of his old cynical spirit. He rode in the
creaking oxcart and pestered whoever drove the cart to tell him everything he
saw, every leaf and rock and cloud, in detail.
Ephesus was the sole exception to our litany of warfare. We had spent the
morning trudging tiredly uphill through a rainstorm, soaked and cold and aching.
About half of the men were mounted on horses or donkeys. Helen rode beside me on
a light dun-colored pony, wrapped in a dark blue hooded cloak, soggy and heavy
with rain. I had sent three of our men on foot ahead as scouts. Several others
trailed behind, a rear guard to warn us of bandits skulking behind us or
Achaians trying to catch up with us.
As we came to the top of the hill, I saw one of our scouts waiting for us beside
the muddy road.
"The city." He pointed.
The rain had slackened, and Ephesus lay below us in a pool of sunlight that had
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broken through the gray clouds. The city glittered like a beacon of warmth and
comfort, white marble gleaming in the sunshine.
We all seemed to gain strength from the sight, and made our way down the winding
road from the hills to the seaport city of Ephesus.
"The city is dedicated to Artemis the Healer," said Lukka. "Men from every part
of the world come here to be cured of their ailments. A sacred spring has water
with magical curative powers." He frowned slightly, as if disappointed in his
own gullibility. Then he added, "So I'm told."
There were no walls around Ephesus. No army had ever tried to take it or sack
it. By a sort of international agreement, this city was dedicated to the goddess
Artemis and her healing arts, and not even the most barbarian king dared to
attack it, lest he and his entire army fall to Artemis's invisible arrows, which
bring plague and painful death.
Helen, listening to Lukka explaining these things to me, rode up between us.
"Artemis is a goddess of the moon, and sister of Apollo."
That made my heart quicken. "Then she favored Troy in the war."
Helen shrugged beneath her sodden cloak. "I suppose so. It did her no good,
though, did it?"
"But she will be angry with us," Lukka said.
So is her brother, I knew, although they are not truly brother and sister. I
made myself smile and said aloud to Lukka, "Surely you don't believe that the
gods and goddesses hold grudges?"
He did not reply, but the expression on his dour face was not a happy one.
Whatever its patron deity, Ephesus was civilization. Even the streets were paved
with marble. Stately columned temples of fluted white marble were centers of
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