Vengeance of Orion by Ben Bova

Author:Ben Bova [Bova, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780812531619
Google: cjWcimIUXLwC
Amazon: 0812531612
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1988-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

We fled Ephesus that night, leaving a very disappointed innkeeper who had looked forward to us staying much longer.

As we rode up into the hills and took the southward trail, I wondered if we could not have appealed to the city's council for protection. But the fear of the armed might of the Achaians who had just destroyed Troy would have paralyzed the Ephesians, I realized. Their city had no protective walls and no real army, merely a city guard for keeping order in the bawdier districts; it depended on the good will of all for its safety. They would not allow Helen to stay in their city when Menalaos and his brother Agamemnon demanded her surrender.

So we pushed on, through the rains and cold of winter, bearing our booty from Troy. A strange group we were: the fugitive Queen of Sparta, a blind storyteller, a band of professional soldiers from an empire that no longer existed, and an outcast from a different time.

We came to the city of Miletus. Here there were walls, strong ones, and a bustling commercial city.

"I was here once," Lukka told me, "when the great High King Hattusilis was angry with the city and brought his army to its gates. They were so frightened that they opened their gates and offered no resistance. They threw themselves upon the High King's mercy. He was magnificent! He slew only the city's leaders, the men who had displeased him, and would not allow us to touch even an egg."

We bought fresh provisions and mounts. Miletus would be the last major city on our route for some time. We planned to move inland, through the Mountains of the Bull and across the plain of Cilicia, then along the edge of the Mittani lands and down the Syrian coastline.

But the sounds and smells of another Aegean city were too much for Poletes. He came to me as we started to break our camp, just outside the city walls, and announced that he would not go on with us. He preferred to remain in Miletus.

"It is a city where I can tell my tales and earn my own bread," he said to me. "I will not burden you further, my lord Orion. Let me spend my final days singing of Troy and the mighty deeds that were done there."

"You can't stay by yourself," I insisted. "You have no house, no shelter of any kind. How will you find food?"

He reached up for my shoulder as unerringly as if he could see. "Let me sit in a corner of the marketplace and tell the tale of Troy," he said. "I will have food and wine and a soft bed before the sun goes down."

"Is that what you truly want?" I asked him.

"I have burdened you long enough, my lord. Now I can take care of myself."

He stood there before me in the pale light of a gray morning, a clean white scarf over his eyes, a fresh tunic hanging over his skinny frame.

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