Read Online The Hittite by Ben Bova - Free Book Online Page A

swam in the sea almost every morning. His thick strong arms were circled with leather wristbands and a bronze armlet above his left elbow that gleamed with polished onyx and lapis lazuli even in the gloom inside his shipboard tent. Puckered white scars from old wounds stood out against the dark skin of his arms, parting the black hairs like roads through a forest.There was a fresh gash on his right forearm, as well, red and still oozing blood slightly.
    The rain drummed against the canvas, which bellied and flapped in the wind scant finger widths above my head. The tent smelled of dogs, musty and damp. And cold. I felt chilled and Poletes, with nothing but his ragged loincloth, hugged his shivering body with his bare arms.
    Odysseos wore a sleeveless tunic, his legs and feet bare, but he had thrown a lamb’s fleece across his wide shoulders. His face was thickly bearded with dark curly hair that showed a trace of gray. His heavy mop of ringlets came down to his shoulders and across his forehead almost down to his black eyebrows. Those eyes were as gray as the sea outside on this rainy afternoon, probing, searching, judging.
    “You are a Hittite?” were his first words to me.
    “I am, my lord.”
    “Why have Hittites come to Troy?”
    I hesitated, trying to decide how much of the truth I should speak to him. Swiftly I realized that it had to be either everything or nothing.
    “I seek my wife and two young sons who have been taken captive, my lord.”
    He rocked back on his stool at that. Clearly it was not an answer he had expected.
    “Your wife and sons?”
    “My wife is among the High King’s slaves,” I added. “If my sons live, they must be with her.”
    Odysseos glanced up at the nobleman standing on his left, whose hair and long beard were dead white. His limbs seemed withered to bones and tendons, his face a skull mask. He had wrapped a blue cloak around his chiton, clasped at the throat with a medallion of gold. Both noblemen appeared weary and drained by the morning’s battle although neither of them bore fresh wounds as Odysseos did.
    The King of Ithaca returned his attention to me. “Who is he?” he asked, pointing to Poletes.
    “My servant,” I answered.
    Odysseos nodded, accepting the storyteller. Lightning flashed and he looked up, waiting for the thunder. When it came at last he muttered, “The storm moves away.”
    Indeed, the rain seemed to be slacking off. Its pelting on the canvas of the tent was noticeably lighter.
    At last Odysseos said, “You did us a great service this morning. Such service should be rewarded.”
    The frail old whitebeard at his left spoke in an abrasive nasal voice, “You fought this morning like a warrior born and bred. Facing Prince Hector by yourself! Half naked, too! By the gods! You reminded me of myself when I was your age! I was absolutely fearless then! As far away as Mycenae and even Thebes I was known. Let me tell you—”
    Odysseos raised his right hand. “Please, Nestor, I pray you forgo your reminiscences for the moment.”
    The old man looked displeased but sank back in silence.
    “You say you seek your wife and sons,” Odysseos resumed. “Then you are not here as a representative of your emperor?”
    Again I hesitated. And again I decided there was nothing to tell him but the truth.
    “There is no emperor, my lord. The lands of the Hatti are torn with civil war. The empire has crumbled.”
    Their jaws dropped open. Odysseos swiftly recovered, but he could not hide the smile that crossed his face.
    Nestor blurted, “Then the Hittites are not sending troops to aid the Trojans?”
    “No, my lord.”
    “You came here by yourself ?” Odysseos asked.
    “With the eleven men of my squad.” Poletes coughed beside me, and I added, “And my servant.”
    Rubbing his beard with one hand, his eyes going crafty, Odysseos murmured, “Then Troy can expect no help from the Hittites.”
    Nestor and the other nobleman broke into happy smiles. “This is indeed