Vengeance of Orion Part 33

"One move from any of you," I growled, "and your king dies."

They all froze: the n.o.bles, some of them with their hands already on their sword hilts; the other guards, their eyes wide, their mouths hanging open.

"Now then, n.o.ble Menalaos," I said, loudly enough for them all to hear, even though my mouth was next to his ear, "we will discuss our differences like men, or face each other as enemies in a fair duel. I am not a thes thes or a slave, to be bound and tortured for your pleasure. I was a warrior of the House of Ithaca, and now I am the leader of an army of Egypt, an army that's been sent here to destroy you." or a slave, to be bound and tortured for your pleasure. I was a warrior of the House of Ithaca, and now I am the leader of an army of Egypt, an army that's been sent here to destroy you."

"You lie!" Menalaos snarled, squirming in my grasp. "The Egyptians have welcomed us to their sh.o.r.es. They are holding my wife for me, and have invited me to sail to their capital to reclaim her."

"The chief minister of the Egyptian king has built a lovely trap for you and all the Achaian lords who come to this land," I insisted. "And Helen is the bait."

"More lies," said Menalaos. But I could see that I had caught the interest of the other n.o.bles.

I released my grip on him and threw my dagger onto the sand at his feet.

"Let the G.o.ds show us which of us is right," I said. "Pick your best warrior and have him face me. If he kills me, then the G.o.ds will have shown that I am lying. If I best him, it will be a sign from the G.o.ds that you should listen to what I have to say."

Murderous anger still flamed in Menalaos's eyes, but the n.o.bles crowded around eagerly.

"Why not?"

"Let the G.o.ds decide!"

"You have nothing to lose, my lord."

Seething, Menalaos shouted, "Nothing to lose? Don't you understand that this traitor, this abductor-he's merely trying to gain a swift clean death instead of the agony he deserves?"

"My lord Menalaos!" I shouted back. "On the plain of Ilios I begged you to intercede on behalf of the storyteller Poletes from the anger of your brother. You refused, and now the old man is blind. I'm not begging you now. I demand demand what you owe me: a fair fight. Not some young champion who rushes foolishly to his death. I want to fight what you owe me: a fair fight. Not some young champion who rushes foolishly to his death. I want to fight you you, mighty warrior. We can settle our differences with spears and swords."

I had him. He took an inadvertent step back away from me, remembering that I had fought so well at Troy. But there was no way he could back out of facing me; he had told them all that he wanted to kill me. Now he had to do it for himself, or be thought a coward by his followers.

The entire camp formed a rough circle for the two of us while Menalaos's servants armed him. This would be a battle on foot, not with chariots. One of the guards brought me my sword; I slung the baldric over my shoulder and felt its comforting weight against my hip. Three n.o.bles gravely offered me my choice from several spears. I picked the one that was shorter but heavier than the others.

Menalaos came forward out of a cl.u.s.ter of servants and n.o.bles, armored from helmet to feet in bronze, carrying a huge figure-eight s.h.i.+eld. In his right hand he bore a single long spear, but I noticed that his servants had placed several others on the ground a few paces behind him.

I had neither s.h.i.+eld nor armor. I did not want them. My hope was to best Menalaos without killing him, to show him and the other Achaians that the G.o.ds were so much with me that no man could oppose me successfully. To accomplish that, I had to avoid getting myself spitted on Menalaos's spear, of course.

I could feel the excitement bubbling from the Achaians circled around us. Nothing like a good fight before breakfast to stimulate the digestion.

An old man in a ragged tunic came out of the crowd and stepped between us. His beard was long and dirty-gray.

"In the name of ever-living Zeus and all the mighty G.o.ds of high Olympos," he said, in a loud announcer's voice, "I pray that this combat will be pleasing to the G.o.ds, and that they send victory to he who deserves it."

He scuttled away and Menalaos swung his heavy s.h.i.+eld in front of his body. With his helmet's cheek plates strapped shut, all I could see of him was his angry, burning eyes.

I stepped lightly to my right, circling away from his spear arm, hefting my own spear in my right hand.

Menalaos pulled his arm back and flung his spear at me. Without an instant's hesitation, he dashed back to pick up another.

My senses quickened as they always do in battle, and the world around me seemed to slow down into the languid motions of a dream. I watched the spear coming toward me, took a step to the side, and let it thud harmlessly into the sand by my feet. The Achaians "oohed."

By this time Menalaos had grasped another spear. He pivoted and hurled this one at me, also. Again I avoided it. With his third spear, though, Menalaos came charging at me, screaming a shrill war cry.

I parried his spear with my own and swung the b.u.t.t of it into his ma.s.sive s.h.i.+eld with a heavy thunk thunk, hard enough to knock him staggering. He tottered to my left, regained his balance, and came at me again. Instead of parrying, this time I ducked under his point and rammed my own spear between his legs. Menalaos went sprawling and I was on top of him at once, my legs pinning his arms to the ground, my sword across his throat, between the chin flaps of his helmet and the collar of his cuira.s.s.

He stared at me. His eyes no longer glared hate; they were wide with fear and amazement.

Sitting on the bronze armor of his chest, I raised my sword high over my head and proclaimed in my loudest voice: "The G.o.ds have spoken! No man could defeat one who is inspired by the will of all-powerful Zeus!"

I got to my feet and pulled Menalaos to his. The Achaians swarmed around us, accepting the judgment of the duel.

"Only a G.o.d could have fought like that!"

"No mortal could face a G.o.d and win."

Although they crowded around Menalaos and a.s.sured him that no hero in memory had ever fought against a G.o.d and lived to tell the tale, they kept an arm's length from me, and looked at me with undisguised awe.

Finally the old priest came up close and stared nearsightedly into my face. "Are you a G.o.d, come to instruct us in human form?"

I took a deep breath and made myself shudder. "No, old man. I could feel the G.o.d within my sinews when we fought, but now he has left, and I am only a mortal once more."

Menalaos, bareheaded now, looked at me askance. But being defeated by a G.o.d was not shameful, and he allowed his men to tell him that he had done something very brave and wonderful. Yet it was clear that he held no love for me.

He invited me into his tent, where he watched me silently as servants unstrapped his armor and women slaves brought us figs, dates, and thick spiced honey. I sat on a handsomely carved ebony stool: of Egyptian design and workmans.h.i.+p, I noticed. It had not come from this fis.h.i.+ng village, either.

Menalaos sat on a rope-web chair, the platter of fruit and honey between us. Once the servants had left us alone, I asked him, "Do you truly want your wife back?"

Some of the anger returned to his eyes. "Why else do you think I'm here?"

"To kill me and serve a fat hippopotamus who calls himself Nekoptah."

He was startled at the chief minister's name.

"Let me tell you what I know," I said. "Nekoptah has promised you Helen and and a share of Egypt's wealth if you kill me. Correct?" a share of Egypt's wealth if you kill me. Correct?"

Grudgingly, "Correct."

"But think a moment. Why would the king's chief minister need an Achaian lord to get rid of one man, a barbarian, a wanderer who stumbled into Egypt in company of a royal refugee?"

Despite himself, Menalaos smiled. "You are no ordinary wanderer, Orion. You are not so easy to kill."

"Did it ever occur to you that Helen is being used as bait, to lure you to your your death-you, and all the other Achaian lords who come to Egypt with you?" death-you, and all the other Achaian lords who come to Egypt with you?"

"A trap?"

"I didn't come alone. An Egyptian army is waiting barely a day's ride from here. Waiting until they can snare all of you in their net."

"But I was told..."

"You were told to send word back to your brother and the other lords that they would be welcomed here, if you did as the king's chief minister asked," I said for him.

"My brother is dead."

I felt a flash of surprise. Agamemnon dead!

"He was murdered by his wife and her lover. His prisoner Ca.s.sandra, also. Now his son seeks vengeance, against his own mother! All of Argos is in turmoil. If I return there..." His voice choked off and he slumped forward, burying his face in his hands.

Ca.s.sandra's prophecy, the tales that got old Poletes blinded-they were true. Clytemnestra and her lover had murdered the High King.

"We have nowhere to turn," Menalaos said, his voice low and heavy with misery. "Argos is upside-down. Barbarians from the north are pus.h.i.+ng toward Athens and will be in Argos after that. Agamemnon is dead. Odysseus has been lost at sea. The other Achaian lords who are coming here to join me are coming out of desperation. We've been told that the Egyptians will welcome us. And now you tell me that it's all a trap."

I sat on the stool and watched the King of Sparta weep. His world was collapsing on his shoulders and he had no idea of where to turn.

But I did.

"How would you like to turn this trap into a triumph?" I asked him.

Menalaos turned his tear-filled eyes up toward me, and I began to explain. It would mean giving Helen back to him, and deep inside me I hated myself for doing that. She was a living, breathing woman, warm and vibrantly alive. Yet I bartered her like a piece of furniture or a gaudy ornament. The anger I felt within me I directed against the Golden One; this is his his doing, I told myself. His manipulations have tangled all our lives; I'm merely trying to put things right. But I knew that what I did I did for myself, to thwart the Golden One, to bring me one step closer to the moment when I could destroy him-and revive Athene. Love and hate were fused inside me, intermingled into a single white-hot force boiling and churning in my mind, too powerful for me to resist. I could barter away a queen who loved me, I could sack cities and slay nations to gain what I wanted: Athene's life and Apollo's death. doing, I told myself. His manipulations have tangled all our lives; I'm merely trying to put things right. But I knew that what I did I did for myself, to thwart the Golden One, to bring me one step closer to the moment when I could destroy him-and revive Athene. Love and hate were fused inside me, intermingled into a single white-hot force boiling and churning in my mind, too powerful for me to resist. I could barter away a queen who loved me, I could sack cities and slay nations to gain what I wanted: Athene's life and Apollo's death.

So I went ahead and told Menalaos how to regain his wife and win a secure place in the Kingdom of the Two Lands.

Nekoptah's scheme was a good one. Practically foolproof. He had thought of almost everything. All I had to do was turn it against him.

Chapter 41.

I moved through the next several weeks like a machine, speaking and acting automatically, my inner mind frozen so that the bitter voices deep within me could not catch my conscious attention. I ate, I slept without dreams, and I brought my plans closer to fruition, day by day.

There was a measure of bitter satisfaction in turning Nekoptah's treacherous scheme against its creator. The fat priest had taken one step too far, as most schemers ultimately do. By sending Prince Aramset on this expedition, he had hoped to eliminate his only possible rival for kingly power. But Aramset was the key to my counter scheme. I followed Nekoptah's plan to the letter except for one detail: Menalaos and the other Achaians would offer their loyalty to the crown prince, not the king's chief minister. And Aramset would treat the Achaians honestly.

Vengeance against the chief minister gave me a taste of gratification. But only the ultimate vengeance, triumph against the Golden One, would bring me true pleasure. And I was moving toward that final moment when I would crush him utterly.

It was strange, I reflected. I had entered this world as a thes thes, less than a slave. I had become a warrior, then a leader of soldiers, then the guardian and lover of a queen. Now I was preparing to create a king, to decide who would rule the richest and most powerful land in this world. I, Orion, would tear the power of rulers.h.i.+p from the bejeweled fingers of scheming Nekoptah and place it where it belonged: in the hands of the crown prince.

Aramset at first listened to my plan coolly when I brought Menalaos to his boat, moored a day's march upriver from the coast. But once its implications became clear to him, once he realized that I was offering him not only a solution to the problem of the Sea Peoples, but a way to remove Nekoptah, he warmed to my ideas quickly enough.

Nekoptah's spies still infested the army and the prince's retinue, but with Lukka's. .h.i.tt.i.tes protecting him, Aramset was safe enough from a.s.sa.s.sination. And gruff old General Raseth was loyal to the prince, in his bl.u.s.tering way. The overwhelming majority of the army would follow him if a crisis arose. Nekoptah's spies were few in number and powerless against the loyalty of the army. The king's chief minister depended on stealth and cunning to achieve his ends; his weapons were lies and a.s.sa.s.sins, not troops who fought face-to-face in the suns.h.i.+ne.

The young prince received the King of Sparta with solemn dignity. None of his usual laughter or youthful nervousness. He sat on a royal throne set up on the afterdeck of his royal boat, under a brightly striped awning, dressed in splendid robes and wearing the strange double crown of the Two Lands, his face set in an expression as stonily unchanging as the statues of his grandfather.

For his part, Menalaos gave a splendid show, his gold-filagreed armor polished until it blazed like the sun itself, his dark beard and curled hair gleaming with oil. Fourteen other Achaian lords were ranked behind him. With their glittering armor and plumed helmets, their dark beards and scarred arms, they looked savage and fierce alongside the Egyptians.

The boat was crammed with men: the prince's retinue, soldiers, dignitaries from the coastal towns, government functionaries. Most of them wore long skirts and were bare to the waist, except for their medallions of office. Some of them were spies for Nekoptah, I knew, but let them report back to their fat master that the crown prince had solved the problem of the Sea Peoples without bloodshed. My only regret was that I could not see the chief minister's painted face twist in anger at the news.

Official scribes sat at the prince's feet, recording every word spoken. Artists perched atop the boat's cabins, sketching madly on sheets of papyrus with sticks of charcoal. Many other boats were ringed around us, also thronged with people to witness this momentous occasion. The sh.o.r.e was crowded, too, with men and women and even children from many towns.

Lukka stood behind the prince's throne, slightly to one side, his lips pressed firmly together to keep himself from grinning. He enjoyed standing higher than Menalaos.

I stood to one side of the a.s.sembly and listened to Menalaos faithfully repeat the lines I had told him to speak. The other Achaian lords, newly arrived from their troubled lands with their wives and families, shuffled uncomfortably in the growing heat of the rising sun. The converse between the Egyptian prince and the dispossessed King of Sparta took most of a long morning. What it amounted to was simply this: Menalaos pledged the loyalty of all the Achaians present to Prince Aramset and, through him, to King Merneptah. In return, Aramset promised the Achaians land and homes of their own-in the name of the king, of course. Their land would be along the coast, and their special duty would be to protect the coast from incursions by raiders. The Peoples of the Sea had been absorbed by the Land of the Two Kingdoms. The thieves had been turned into policemen.

"Do you think they will do an honest job of protecting the coast?" Aramset asked me, as servants removed his ceremonial robes.

We were in his cabin, small and low and stuffy in the midday heat. I felt sweat trickling down my jaw and legs. Somehow the young prince seemed perfectly comfortable in the sweltering oven.

"By giving them homes in the kingdom," I said, repeating the argument I had made many times before, "you remove the reason for their raids. They have nowhere else to go, and they fear the barbarians invading their land from the north."

"My father will be pleased with me, I think."

I knew he was expressing a hope more than a certainty.

"Nekoptah will not," I said.

He laughed as the last windings were taken off his torso and he stood naked except for the loincloth around his groin.

"I will deal with Nekoptah," the prince said happily. "I have my own army now."

The dressers departed and other servants brought chilled water and bowls of fruit.

"Would you prefer wine, Orion?"

"No, water will do."

Aramset took up a small melon and a knife. As he began to slice it, he asked, "And you, my friend. You worry me."

"I?".

He slouched on the bunk and looked up at me. "You are willing to give up that beautiful lady?"

"She is Menalaos's lawful wife."

Aramset smiled. "I have seen her, you know. I I wouldn't give her up. Not willingly." wouldn't give her up. Not willingly."

Feeling distinctly uncomfortable, I said nothing. How could I explain to him about the Creators and the G.o.ddess I hoped to restore to life? How could I speak of the growing unhappiness within me, the reluctance to give up this woman who had shared my life for so many months, who had offered me her love? Silence was my refuge.

With a shrug, Aramset said, "If you won't talk about women, what about rewards?"

"Rewards, your highness?"

"You have done me a great service. You have done this kingdom a great service. What reward would you have? Name it and it is yours."

I barely gave it an instant's thought. "Allow me to enter the great pyramid of Khufu."

For a moment Aramset said nothing. Then, pursing his lips slightly, he replied, "That might be difficult. It's actually the province of the chief priest of Amon..."

"Hetepamon," I said.