Shield of Thunder (47 page)

As he stood there unnoticed, an old man with a staff, a troop of soldiers came running up through the gateway and past him. Pausanius peered at them, his vision blurred by his eighty years and the light of the low sun. By Ares, they are Mykene, he thought. Mykene soldiers in the fortress? For a moment he thought the pain was making him hallucinate and recall the invasion three years earlier.

Another troop of Mykene in their distinctive bronze-disked armor charged unchallenged through the Seagate and up into the fortress. From far away Pausanius heard the sounds of combat beginning, screams and shouts and clashing metal.

Confused and uncertain, he stumbled forward, leaning heavily on his staff. Through the open gate he saw Mykene troops still pouring off the two ships and climbing the hill to the fortress. More ships were beaching, soldiers leaping to the sand. A group of Mykene officers stood outside the gates a few paces away, talking casually. They glanced at the old man but ignored him.

The gate guards lay dead. On a sagging wooden table beyond the two bodies Pausanius saw a sad pile of old swords, knives, and battered clubs confiscated from visitors during the day. As Pausanius had feared, the fool Idaios had no system for dealing with the weaponry. It was just dumped in a heap and guarded by two bored soldiers. Two dead soldiers now.

The body of Idaios lay with them, a great wound in his throat.

Traitor! Pausanius thought with rage. I believed him to be just a fool, but he was a traitor, too. He opened the gates for them, then was slain by his new masters. A fool and a traitor both.

One of the group of Mykene officers noticed him and said something to the others. They all turned to look at the old general struggling toward them. Some of them smiled. One man dressed all in white stepped forward, two swords belted at his side.

Flame-haired Menon spoke. “I am sorry to see you here, Uncle.”

The shock was almost too great to bear, and Pausanius groaned as if in pain. Dead Idaios was not the traitor. The man who had delivered the fortress to the enemy was his own flesh and blood.

“How could you do this?” he said. “Why, Menon?”

“For the kingdom, Uncle,” Menon said calmly. “You said I could help it be great. And I will. As king. You think Dardania and Troy can withstand the might of all the western kings? If we continue to resist Agamemnon, the land will be laid waste, the people slaughtered or enslaved.”

Pausanius stared at him, then at the Mykene officers close by. In the distance the sounds of battle echoed through the fortress. “People who trusted you are being slaughtered now,” he said. “You have broken my heart, Menon. Better for me to have died than to see you as a traitor and a cur.”

Menon flushed and stepped back. “You never did understand the nature of power, Uncle. When Anchises died,
you
could have seized the throne.
That
is how dynasties are born. Instead, you pledged allegiance to a simpering woman and her get. And look where it led. To a war we cannot win. Go back to your apartment, Uncle. You do not have to die here.”

“Of course he has to die,” said a Mykene officer with a forked beard. “He knows you, and once we have left, he will tell Helikaon of your deeds.”

“Best listen to your master, little dog,” Pausanius said contemptuously. “When he says bark, you bark!”

Menon’s face turned crimson. Drawing one of his swords, he stepped in. “I did not wish to kill you,” he said, “for you have always been good to me. But you have lived too long, old man.”

The general’s body was ancient, but it remembered sixty years of battles. As the sword swung down at his neck, wielded with casual arrogance, he lunged and head butted the younger man. Grabbing the front of Menon’s white tunic, he dragged him forward, then curled his hand around the hilt of Menon’s second sword. Blood streaming from his broken nose, Menon wrenched himself clear of the old man’s grip. As he stepped back, he failed to notice Pausanius pulling the sword clear. The old general stepped in with a straight thrust that stabbed through Menon’s jugular. Blood sprayed over the white tunic. Menon gave a gurgling cry and staggered back, his hands clamped around his throat, seeking to stem the gouting flow.

Pausanius fell to his knees, his strength suddenly gone. He heard the sound of running feet and felt a blow, two blows, to his back. All pain ceased. Menon collapsed before him, his head drooping onto Pausanius’ shoulder. The old general looked at the dying Menon as his own vision blurred and darkened.

“I…so loved you…boy,” he said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE RIDER IN THE SKY

The little boy awoke with a start. Rubbing his small fists in his gummy eyes, Dex sat up and looked around him. It was dark in the bedchamber. A single candle guttered low in the corner, and by its dim light he could see that Gray One was not in her bed. He was alone.

He remembered leaving his bedroom after a nightmare and coming crying to Gray One’s room, tapping lightly on her door. She had opened it and, as she always did, had chided him gently for his fears. She always relented, though, and the previous night, as usual, had carried him to her own bed, laying him down beside her. “Sleep safely, little Dex,” she had whispered. “I am with you.”

But she wasn’t with him.

Muffled sounds came from outside the room, both in the courtyard below and on the stairs outside the door. There were harsh shouts and hard clanging noises.

Unused to being alone in the dark, the three-year-old was frightened. Gray One was always there when he woke up. She took him to the kitchen for breakfast.

Pushing his feet out from under the warm sheet, he slid to the edge of the bed and climbed down. Padding across the cold stone and the soft rugs, he dragged a wooden stool to the open window, then climbed up to peer down into the courtyard. It was dark outside as well, but he could see fires, and the smell of smoke drifted up to him, tickling his throat and making him sneeze. He could see the shapes of men and women running about and hear their cries.

The sight of the fires made him think of breakfast again. Gray One would toast yesterday’s bread and smear it with honey. He climbed carefully down from the stool, pushed open the heavy door, and slipped out into the corridor.

Outside he saw someone lying on the floor. By the light of a flickering torch on the wall he could see it was Gray One. She was lying huddled, knees drawn up. Her eyes were closed. He squatted down beside her for a while, but she didn’t wake up. Wondering what to do, he patted her hand uncertainly.

“I’m hungry,” he said, leaning close to her ear.

Just then he heard the sound of running feet coming toward him. Had Sun Woman discovered he had left his room? Would she be angry with him? On an impulse he ran into a dark corner and hid behind a heavy curtain masking a window.

The curtain did not quite reach the timbered floor, and he lay flat, staring out through the gap. A group of soldiers ran into sight. He liked soldiers, but he didn’t recognize any of these men and decided to stay where he was.

They ran past him, their hard metal greaves glinting in the torchlight, their heavily sandaled feet noisy on the timbers. He could smell their sweat and leather.

“Find the boy!” one shouted, his voice bouncing off the corridor walls. “He wasn’t in his room. He must be with the queen.”

When the soldiers had passed, their footsteps echoing down the staircase, he made his way out into the small courtyard. Staying in the gloom of the courtyard walls, he edged toward the stables. Dex liked the stables. It was never quiet there. He liked the sound of the horses’ heavy breathing and the shuffling of their hooves on the stone floor.

Dex didn’t know why, but he knew he was in trouble. Gray One had gone to sleep in the corridor, and Sun Woman had sent angry soldiers to find him. Keeping to the shadows, he saw more soldiers with swords race past him toward the tower. Then someone he knew, the man who put him on the pony sometimes, ran out into the courtyard. He was limping, and Dex was about to go to him when the man fell down. Two soldiers came up behind him and stuck their swords into him as he lay on the ground. He screamed and screamed and then was still.

Terrified now, Dex cringed into the shadow of the wall. He heard a woman cry out and could see flames coming from the kitchen, leaping high into the night, bathing the courtyard in an orange glow. Two women ran from the kitchen doors, pursued by more soldiers. The soldiers were laughing and waving their swords.

Dex closed his eyes. He could feel the heat of the flames.

“Dex!”

He opened his eyes to see a soldier he knew. He had a red beard, and he made Dex laugh when he carried him on his back. The man snatched him up and held him close to his chest. Dex felt a surge of pleasure and relief, although the man’s armor was hard against him. He tried to tell the red-bearded soldier about Gray One lying down.

“Hush, boy, I’ll see you safe,” the man said.

He sprinted across the courtyard toward the stables. There were bodies everywhere, servants and soldiers. As they passed the kitchens, Dex could feel the heat against his bare legs and smell cooking meat. He pushed his face into the soldier’s chest.

The soldier ran into the stable, then put him down. Kneeling down, he took hold of Dex’s shoulders. “Listen to me, boy. You must hide. Like you always do. You know? Find a place in the straw and burrow deep.”

“Is it a game?” Dex asked.

“Yes, a game. And you must not come out until I come for you. Understand?”

“Yes. But I am hungry.”

“Go now and hide. Do not make a sound, Dex. Just stay hidden.”

He pushed Dex away, and the boy ran to the last stall and ducked inside. The stall was empty, and straw had been piled there. Dropping to his belly, Dex eased himself into the center of it and sat, hugging his knees.

From within the straw Dex could just make out the image of the soldier. He had drawn his sword and was standing quietly. Then more men came, and there were angry shouts and the terrible clanging he had heard earlier. He saw one soldier fall down, then another. But then the friendly soldier also tumbled to the ground. Other soldiers jumped on him, hitting him again and again with their swords.

Then they began running through the stable, looking in all the stalls.

Dex stayed very quiet.

∗ ∗ ∗

Halysia had always been told she had courage. By the time she was five she had tumbled from her old pony many times. Her father would tend her bumps and scrapes and once a broken arm, and as she suffered his rough care, he would look into her eyes and tell her how brave she was. Her brothers would laugh at her and put her on the mare again, and she would laugh with them and forget her injuries.

When, at seventeen, she had been sent to wed Anchises, she had been terrified at first of the old man and the dark foreign fortress where she must live and of the perils of childbirth that had claimed her mother and her beloved sister. But when she was frightened, she would remember her father’s dark eyes on her and his words: “Have courage, little squirrel. Without courage your life is nothing. With courage you need nothing else.”

Now, some way past her thirtieth year, she no longer believed in her courage. Whatever strength she possessed had been ripped from her during the attack on Dardanos three years before. No night had passed since then when she had not been ravaged by fears. Her sleep was broken by terrifying visions in which her son Diomedes fell in flames from the cliff, his screams terrible to hear, and she felt the pain and humiliation as the invaders held her down and brutally raped her, a knife at her throat. She would awake sobbing, and Helikaon would reach for her in the darkness and hold her in the fortress of his arms. He told her time and time again that she was a brave woman sorely tested, that the fears and nightmares she suffered were natural but would be overcome.

But he was wrong.

She had known the invaders would come back, known with a certainty that was bone-deep and had nothing to do with her fear. She had always received visions, even as a child among the horse herds of Zeleia. Her simple predictions about the foaling prospects of a young mare or the illnesses that struck down the wild horses in the wet season always came true, and her father would smile at her and say she was blessed by Poseidon, who loved horses.

Now, as she sat on the great carved chair of Anchises in the
megaron,
her hands gripping the wide wooden arms in a death grip, she knew that once again her visions were true. Mykene soldiers were inside the fortress.

Thoughts swarmed like bats through her mind, images flaring. Helikaon had sent word to beware of traitors, to watch for strangers. But it was no stranger who had opened the Seagate. One of her soldiers had seen Menon walking with Mykene officers.

Menon! It was almost inconceivable that he could have committed such a dark and terrible act. He was always charming and thoughtful, and Halysia had believed he was genuinely fond of her. To sell her for rape and slaughter was beyond understanding.

More than three hundred Mykene soldiers had entered the citadel, scarcely hindered by Dardanos’ depleted garrison. The Mykene had known exactly when to come. They had slipped in on unguarded seas on the one day she had sent—on Menon’s advice—Dardania’s small remaining fleet to Carpea to escort the fleeing Trojan Horse.

Surrounded by her personal bodyguard of twenty, she sat silent as a stone statue in the
megaron
as they all listened to the sounds of battle outside. Through the high windows she could see the flickering light of flames. She could hear screams and shouts and battle cries. She trembled so badly that her teeth chattered, and she clamped her jaw tightly so that the men would not hear.

The bodyguard, handpicked by Helikaon, waited grimly around her, swords in hand. She shook her head, trying to shake free the terror paralyzing her mind.

A young blood-covered soldier ran into the
megaron.

“They have taken the north tower, lady,” he said between labored breaths. “The kitchens have been set afire. The eastern barracks have also fallen. There are more Mykene outside the Landgate, but they cannot get in. We are stopping the invaders inside from reaching it.”

“How many more outside?”

“Hundreds.”

“Where is Pausanius?” she managed to ask, surprised that her voice sounded firm.

The soldier shook his head. “I have not seen him. Rhygmos commands the defense of the
megaron.
Protheos is holding the invaders from the Landgate.”

“What of the boy?”

“I saw him with Gradion at the stable, but there were Mykene soldiers closing in on them. Gradion took the boy inside. I had to run then. I did not see what followed.”

She stood on leaden legs and turned to the captain of her guard, clasping her hands in front of her to stop them from shaking. “Menesthes, we always knew the
megaron
could not be held. We cannot waste life defending it. We must pull back to the eastern tower.”

Just then the double doors to the
megaron
crashed open, and Mykene soldiers streamed inside. Menesthes drew his sword and rushed at them, followed by his men. Halysia knew they could not hold for long. Then Menesthes shouted back to her. “Flee, lady! Flee now!”

Halysia gathered up her gown and ran across the great room, pushing open the door to the antechamber, which she barred behind her. It would not stop determined men armed with axes and swords, but it would delay them.

She paused for a moment, fearing she would black out from the terror in her heart. Forcing her legs to move, she ran up the narrow stone staircase to her bedchamber. Its door was heavy and cross-grained. It would take them a while to batter it down. She closed it behind her and placed the solid wood locking bar across it.

The room was lit by low candles. There were soft rugs on the floor and jewel-colored tapestries on the walls. She paused for a heartbeat, breathing in the light perfume of roses on the night air, then walked out onto the balcony.

Helikaon had planned for this moment for three years. He respected her visions, and the warrior within him believed even more in Agamemnon’s desire for vengeance. Shortly after the last invasion, Halysia’s bedchamber had been moved from its old place in the north wing to these rooms high above the sea behind the
megaron.
It boasted a wide stone balcony overlooking the west.

The queen walked to the end of the balcony and thrust aside a hanging curtain of creeping plants. Looking down, she could see the first of the short wooden bars set into the stone of the outside wall.

Under cover of renovations to her new apartments, lengths of seasoned oak had been set deep into the stone, descending to an overgrown garden overlooking the sea. No guards or palace servants were permitted to enter the garden, and it had been allowed to grow wild with roses and vines. The work had been skillfully done, and it was hard to discern the handholds from the ground even if one knew what to look for.

The craftsmen responsible for the work had returned to her brother’s tribe in Zeleia, heaped with honor and silver and sworn to secrecy.

With Helikaon absent, only two people in the fortress knew of the escape route besides herself: Pausanius, of course, and his aide Menon.

Menon, the betrayer!

She hesitated in an agony of indecision, looking at the escape route into darkness. What choice do I have? she thought. I cannot stay here and wait for them.

She bent over the balcony wall and listened, trying to calm the thumping of her heart. She could hear nothing in the undergrowth below. All was still.