The hour was nearly over. I could see Poletes, across the great square of the marketplace, standing at the edge of the crowd gathered around one of the storytellers, his gnarled legs almost as skinny as the stick he leaned on.

 

"Orion."

 

I looked down at Helen. She was smiling at me like an understanding mother smiles at a naughty son. "You haven't heard a word I've said."

 

"I'm sorry. My mind was elsewhere."

 

She repeated, "I said that we could live here in Ephesus very nicely. This is a civilized city, Orion. With the wealth we have brought, we could buy a comfortable villa and live splendidly."

 

"And Egypt?"

 

She sighed. "It's so far away. And traveling has been much more difficult than I thought it would be."

 

"Perhaps we could get a boat and sail to Egypt," I suggested. "It would be much swifter and easier than overland."

 

Her eyes brightened. "Of course! There are hundreds of boats in the harbor."

 

But when we went to the dock, all thoughts of boats fled from our minds. We saw six galleys stroking into the harbor, all of them bearing a picture of a lion's head on their sails.

 

"Menalaos!" Helen gasped.

 

"Or Agamemnon," I said. "Either way, we can't stay here. They're searching for you."

 

 

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. I learned then that even blinded eyes can cry. And so could I.

 

We embraced like brothers, and he turned without another word and walked slowly toward the city gate, tapping his stick before him.

 

I sent the others off on the inland road, telling them I would catch up later. I waited half the day, then entered the city and made my way to the marketplace. Poletes sat there cross-legged in the middle of a large and rapidly growing throng, his arms gesturing, his wheezing voice speaking slowly, majestically: "Then mighty Achilles prayed to his mother, Thetis the Silver-Footed, 'Mother, my lifetime is destined to be so brief that ever-living Zeus, sky-thunderer, owes me a worthier prize of glory...' "

 

I watched for only a few minutes. That was enough. Men and women, boys and little girls, were rushing up to join the crowd, their eyes fastened on Poletes like the eyes of a bird hypnotized by a snake. Rich merchants, soldiers in chain mail, women of fashion in their colorful robes, city magistrates carrying their wands of office-they all pressed close to hear Poletes's words. Even the other storytellers, left alone once Poletes had started singing of Troy, got up from their accustomed stones and ambled grudgingly across the marketplace to listen to the newcomer.

 

Poletes was right, I reluctantly admitted. He had found his place. He would be fed and sheltered here, even honored. And as long as we were far away, he could sing of Troy and Helen all he wanted to.

 

I went back to the city gate, where I had left my horse with the guards there. I handed their corporal a few coppers, and nosed my chestnut mount up the inland trail. I would never see Poletes again, and that made me feel the sadness of loss.

 

But time and distance softened my sadness, blurred it into a bittersweet memory of the cranky old storyteller.

 

Lukka led us across a steep and snowy mountain pass and down into the warm and fruitful Cilician plain, where wine grapes, wheat, and barley grew and olive trees dotted the countryside.

 

The Cilician cities were tightly shut against all strangers. The collapse of the Hatti empire was felt here; instead of depending on imperial law and the protection of the Hatti army, each city had to look to its own safety. We bartered for what we needed with farmers and suspicious villagers, then headed eastward across the plain and finally turned south, keeping the sea always at our right.

 

I noticed that Helen looked over her shoulder often, searching as I did for signs of pursuit. We scanned the sea, as well, whenever we could see it. None of the sails we spotted bore a lion's head.

 

On the road we slept apart. It was better discipline for the men, I thought. I did not take her to bed unless we were in a town or city where the men could find women for themselves. I realized that my passion for Helen was controllable, and therefore not the kind of love that I had for my dead goddess.

 

Gradually, she began to tell me of her earlier life. She had been abducted when barely twelve, whisked away from the farm of an uncle on the saddle of a local chieftain who had taken a fancy to her newly budding beauty. Her father had bribed the grizzled old bandit and he surrendered her unharmed, but the incident convinced her father that he would have to marry off his daughter quickly, while she was still a virgin.

 

"Every princeling in Achaia sought my hand," she told me one night when we were camped in a little village ringed by a palisade of sharpened stakes. The village chief had decided to be hospitable to our band of armed men. Lukka and his men were being entertained by some of the local women. Helen and I had been offered a small hut of mud bricks. It was the first time we had been under a roof in weeks.

 

She spoke wistfully, almost sadly, almost as if all that had happened to her had somehow been her own fault. "With so many suitors, my father had to be very careful in his choice. Finally he picked Menalaos, brother of the High King. It was a good match for him; it tied our house to the most powerful house in Argos."

 

"You had no say in the matter?"

 

She smiled at such an absurd idea. "I didn't see Menalaos until our wedding day. My father kept me well protected."

 

"And then Aleksandros," I said.

 

"And then Aleksandros. He was handsome, and witty, and charming. He treated me as if I were a person, a human being."

 

"You went with him willingly, then?"

 

Again her smile. "He never asked. He never took the risk that I might refuse him. In the end, despite his wit and charm, he still behaved like an Achaian: he took what he wanted."

 

I looked deep into her bright blue eyes, so innocent, so knowing. "But in Troy you told me..."

 

"Orion," she said softly, "in this world a woman must accept what she cannot change. Troy was better for me than Sparta. Aleksandros was more civilized than Menalaos. But neither of them asked me for my hand: I was given to Menalaos by my father; I was taken from him by Aleksandros."

 

Then she added, almost shyly, "You are the only man I've had to pursue. You are the only one I've given myself to willingly."

 

I took her in my arms and there was no more talking for that night. But still I wondered how much of her tale I could believe. How true was her passion for me, and how much of it was her way to make certain that I would protect her all the way to distant Egypt?

 

The turmoil of our earlier travels eased after Cilicia. Robber bands and wandering contingents of masterless soldiery became rare. We no longer had to fight our way across the land. Yet each night Lukka had his men tend to their weapons and equipment as if he expected a pitched battle in the morning.

 

"Now we head toward Ugarit," Lukka told me as we turned south once again. "We sacked the city many years ago, when I was just a youngling squire clinging to my father's chariot as we charged into battle."

 

Past Ugarit we went. The once-mighty city was still little more than a burned-out shell, with shacks and shanties clinging to the blackened stumps of its walls where once mighty houses and fortified towers had stood. I saw the visible evidence of the power of the Hatti empire, strong enough to reach across mountains and plains to crush a city that defied its High King. And yet that power was gone now, blown away in the wind like the sands of a melting dune.

 

For the first time since I had been up in the hills above Troy, I saw a forest, tall stately cedar trees that spread their leafy branches high overhead, so that walking through them was like walking down the aisle of a living cathedral that went on for miles and miles.

 

And then, abruptly, we were in the rugged scorched hills of the desert. Bare stones heated by the pitiless sun until they were too hot to touch. Hardly any vegetation at all, merely little clumps of bushes here and there. Snakes and scorpions scuttled on the burning ground; overhead carrion birds circled waiting, waiting.

 

We cut far inland over the broken hilly terrain, avoiding the coast and the port cities. Now and again a band of marauders accosted us, always to their sorrow. We left many bodies for those patient birds to feast on, although we lost four men of our own.

 

The territory was a natural habitat for robbers: raw, lawless, a succession of broken barren hills and narrow valleys and defiles where ambush could be expected at every turn. The heat was like an oven, making the land dance in shimmering waves that sapped the strength from my men and their mounts.

 

Helen rode in the cart, shaded by tenting made of the finest silks of Troy. The heat took the energy from her, too, and her lovely face became wan and drawn; like the rest of us, she was caked with grimy dust. But not once did she complain or ask us to slow our southward pace.

 

"Meggido is not far from here," said Lukka one hot bright day, as the sweat poured down his leathery face and into his beard. "The Hatti and the Egyptians fought a great battle there."

 

We were skirting the shores of a sizable lake. Villages lay scattered around it, and we had been able to barter some of our goods for provisions. The lake water was bitter-tasting, but better than thirst. We filled our canteens and barrels with it.

 

"Who won?" I asked.

 

Lukka considered the question with his usual grave silence, then replied, "Our High King Muwatallis claimed a great victory for us. But we never returned to that place, and the army came back to our own lands much smaller than it was when it went out."

 

Around the lake we traveled, and then down the river that flowed southward out of it. Villages were sparse here. Farming, even along the river, was difficult in the dry powdery soil. Most of the villages lived on herds of goats and sheep that nibbled the sparse grass wherever they could find it. These people also spoke of Meggido, and told of the enormous battles that had been fought for it from time immemorial. But they gave the city a slightly different name: Armageddon.

 

The weather was getting so hot that we took to moving only in the very early morning and again late in the day, when the sun had gone down. We slept during the coldest hours of the night, shivering in our blankets, and tried to sleep during the hottest hours of midday.

 

One morning I walked on ahead, taking my turn as advance scout. The day before we had beaten off an attack by a determined party of raiders. They did not have the look of bandits about them. Like us, they seemed to be members of an organized troop, well armed and disciplined enough to back away from us in good order once they realized we were professional soldiers.

 

I climbed a little rise in the rugged, barren ground and, with one hand shading my eyes, surveyed the shimmering, wavering, hellish landscape.

 

Rocks and scrub, parched grass turning brown under the sun, except for the thin line of green along the banks of the river.

 

Up on the top of a rocky hill I saw a column of grayish-white smoke rising. It looked strange to me. Not like the smoke of a fire that curls and drifts on the wind, this was almost like a pillar, densely packed, swirling in on itself, and rising straight up into the bright, blinding sky. The smoke itself seemed to glow, as if lighted from within.

 

I scrambled across the rocky desert toward the column of smoke. As I trudged up the slope of the hill, I felt a strange tingling in my feet. It grew stronger, almost painful, as I neared the top.

 

The hilltop was bare rock, except for a couple of tiny outcrop-pings of bare brown dead-looking bushes. The column of smoke streamed directly from the rock toward the sky, with no apparent source. My legs were jangling as if someone were sticking thousands of pins into them.

 

"Better to take off your boots, Orion," came a familiar voice. "The nails in them conduct electrostatic forces. I have no desire to cause you undue pain."

 

Sullen anger flooded through me as I grudgingly tugged off the boots and tossed them aside. The tingling sensation did not disappear entirely, but subsided to the point where I could ignore it.

 

The Golden One stepped out of the base of the smoke column. He seemed somehow older than I had ever seen him before, his face more solemn, his eyes burning with inner fires. Instead of the robes I had seen him wearing when I had been on the plain of Ilios, he had draped himself in a plain white garment that seemed to be made of rough wool. It glowed softly against the swirling pillar of grayish smoke behind him.

 

"For your disobedience, I should destroy you." He spoke in a quiet, level, controlled tone.

 

My hands itched to reach his throat, but I could not move them. I knew that he controlled me, that he could stop my heart's beating with the flick of an eyebrow, could force me to kneel and grovel at his feet merely by thinking it. The fury within me rose hotter than the sun-baked stone on which I stood barefoot, hotter than the blazing cloudless sky that shone like hammered brass above us.

 

I managed to say, as I stood with my fists clenched helplessly at my sides, "You can't destroy me. The others won't let you. They opposed you at Troy, some of them. Blame them for your defeat."

 

"I do, Orion. I will have my vengeance against them. And you will help me to achieve it."

 

"Never! I won't raise a finger to help you. I'll work against you in every way I can."

 

He made a deep dramatic sigh and took a step toward me. "Orion, we must not be enemies. You are my creation, my creature. Together we can save the continuum."

 

"Once you killed her you made me your enemy."

 

He closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly. "I know. I understand." Looking at me with those intent eyes once more, he said softly, "I miss her too."

 

I tried to laugh in his face, but it came out like a snarl.

 

"Orion, I have been studying the situation carefully. There may-I say only may, mind you-be a way of restoring her."

 

Despite his controls I leaped forward and almost grasped him by the shoulders. But my hands froze in midair.

 

"Not so fast!" the Golden One said. "It's only a remote possibility. The risks are huge. The dangers..."

 

"I don't care," I said, my pulse roaring in my ears. "Bring her back to me! Restore her!"

 

"I cannot do it alone. And the others... those who opposed me at Troy, they will oppose me again. It will mean a deliberate change in the continuum of a magnitude that not even I have attempted before."

 

I heard his words, but I could not comprehend their full meaning. Nor was I certain that he was telling me the truth.

 

"I never lie, Orion," he said, reading my thoughts. "To restore her means tampering with the space-time continuum to such an extent that I could rip it apart just as surely as Ahriman once did."

 

"But you and your other Creators survived that," I said.

 

"Some of us did. Some of us did not. I told you that gods are not necessarily immortal."

 

"And that they are not necessarily just or merciful, too," I replied.

 

He laughed. "Just so. Just so."

 

"Will you try to restore her?" My voice was almost begging.

 

"Yes," he said. Before my heart could leap for joy he added, "But only if you obey me fully and completely, Orion. Her existence is in your hands."

 

There was no sense trying to resist or dissemble. "What do you want me to do?"

 

For an instant he did not reply, as if he were formulating his plans on the spot. Then he said, "You are heading south, toward Egypt."

 

"Yes."

 

"You will soon encounter a wandering band of people who are migrating out of Egypt. Whole families, hundreds of them, traveling together with their flocks and tents. They seek to occupy this territory, to make it their own..."

 

"This territory?" I gestured around at the barren rocks and dead scrub.

 

"Even this," replied the Golden One. "And they are opposed by the villagers and townspeople who already live here. You and your troop of soldiers will help them."

 

"Why them?"

 

He smiled at me. "Because they worship me, Orion. They believe that I am not merely the mightiest god of them all, but the only god that exists. And soon, with your help, they will be perfectly right."

 

Before I could ask another question, before I could even think, the Golden One disappeared and the pillar of smoke evaporated as if it had never been.

 

 

Chapter 27

 

WE pushed southward, down the river that flowed from one landlocked sea to another. There were villages dotted along its banks, protected by walls of dried mud bricks. Green farmlands fed by irrigation ditches stood in bold contrast to the bare browns and grays of the rocky hills. The people here were wary of strangers; too many wandering bands had come their way, anxious to take those green lands for themselves or, failing that, to pillage and loot the towns before moving on.

 

They traded with us, grudgingly, more in an effort to get us to leave their area as quickly as possible. I always kept Helen out of sight, inside the covered cart. And still I watched for signs of Achaians searching for us.

 

Then one hot afternoon, as the heat haze made a shimmering mirage out of a dry rocky canyon, we came across the advance scouts of the people the Golden One had told me about.

 

There were twenty of them, warriors, on foot, no two of them wearing the same kind or color of clothing or the same kind of weapons. A ragtag lot, at first glance. Smallish in stature, browned by the sun-just as we were, I realized.

 

They had arrayed themselves across the narrowest neck of the canyon as we approached them. I wondered if they thought they could stop us from passing through, if it came to a fight. Most of us were mounted on horses and donkeys. I thought we could punch through their thin screen if we had to.

 

But Lukka, scrutinizing them with a professional eye as we approached, said, "They're not fools, despite their shabby clothes."

 

"Do you recognize them?"

 

He shook his head the slightest distance it could move and still convey a negative. "They may be the Abiru that the villagers warned us against two days ago."

 

I nosed my horse forward. "I'll speak with their leader."

 

He rode up beside me. "I can translate, if they speak any language of the empire."

 

"I can understand their language," I said.

 

Lukka gave me a strange look.

 

"It's a gift from the gods," I explained. "The gift of tongues."

 

I rode slightly ahead and raised my hand in a sign of peace. One of the warriors walked up toward me, still holding his spear in his right hand. I slid down from my horse and stood on the dusty soil as he approached me. The heat beat down from the brazen sky and reflected off the scorching rocks. It was like standing in an oven. The only shade in sight was the sparse sliver along the canyon wall to my left. But this young warrior showed no interest in getting out of the hot sun.

 

His name was Ben-Jameen; he was the eldest son of a tribal chief. They called themselves the Children of Israel, he told me. Ben-Jameen was a youngster, his beard barely starting to sprout. But he was lean and hard-muscled; his eyes missed nothing as he scanned my two dozen men, the horses, donkeys, and oxcarts. He was tense and suspicious, gripping his spear tightly, as if prepared to use it at an instant's notice.

 

When I told him that we were Hatti soldiers, he used the term "Hittites," and seemed to relax slightly. He almost smiled.

 

"In whose service are you, then?" he asked.

 

"No one's. We have come from a great war, far to the north and west of here. We helped to destroy the kingly city of Troy."

 

His face went blank; he had never heard the name.

 

"Perhaps you know it as Ilium, by the straits called the Hellespont that lead into the Sea of Black Waters."

 

Still no gleam of recognition.

 

I gave it up. "It was a war, and these men helped to take the city after a long siege."

 

At that, something glimmered in his eyes. "Why are you here, then, in this land of Canaan?"

 

"We are traveling south, to Egypt, to seek service with the great king of that land."

 

He glared at me, then coughed up phlegm and spat on the parched ground. "That for the Pharaoh! It took my people four generations to escape the slavery of Egypt."

 

I made a shrug and replied, "We are a unit of professional soldiery. I have heard that the Egyptian king has need of soldiers."

 

Those suspicious eyes fixed on me. "You are not in anyone's service now?"

 

"No. The old empire has collapsed..."

 

"The God of Israel has smitten the Hittites," he murmured, and now he truly did smile.

 

I glanced at Lukka, still on his horse, off to one side, and was glad that he could not understand the Hebrew tongue.

 

"And now He will smite the evil worshipers of Baal who shut themselves up in their city." Ben-Jameen looked past me, at the men and their mounts, the carts, at Lukka sitting on his horse slightly behind me, and finally at me again. There was a new light in his eyes. "You will serve our God and our people and help us to take the city of Jericho, just as you took that northern city you spoke of."

 

"We are not seeking service here," I said. "We are traveling to Egypt."

 

"You will serve the God of Israel," Ben-Jameen insisted. Then, softening slightly, he said, "At least come and spend the night in our camp and meet our great leader Joshua."

 

I hesitated, sensing a trap.

 

The youngster smiled shyly. "He would never forgive me if I allowed you to leave without bringing you to him. I would be disgraced before my father's eyes."

 

It was difficult to argue with him.

 

"Besides," he added, the smile brightening slightly, "it will be impossible for you to go farther south without running into other groups of our people. We are a multitude."

 

I bowed to the inevitable and accepted his offer of hospitality as graciously as I could.

 

The Israelites were indeed a multitude, hundreds of families camped on a wide plain between the river they called Jordan and the worn, bare, baked-brown mountains. Their tents dotted the green plain, and their flocks stirred clouds of dust when they were driven from pasture to the rough fences of their nightly fold.

 

With the setting sun turning the western sky blood red, and the hot wind blowing down off those scorched mountains, the smell of those flocks was almost overpowering. No one seemed to notice it except us newcomers. Families were gathering before each tent, starting the evening cooking fires, chattering in their guttural language, children running, boys shouting at each other as they played with wooden swords and shields, girls screeching with high-pitched laughter.

 

But what caught my eyes, and Lukka's, was the walled city sitting atop a low hill in the middle of the plain. It dominated the region, just as Troy had dominated the plain of Ilios.

 

"That is Jericho," I told Lukka.

 

"It is known as the oldest city in the world," he said.

 

"Is it? The walls certainly seem high and thick."

 

"Stronger than Troy's."

 

"They want us to help them take it."

 

He made a coughing grunt.

 

"Can it be done?"

 

Lukka scratched at his beard. "My lord Orion, any city can be taken. It's only a question of time, and how many lives you can afford to lose."

 

We made our camp as far from the animal pens as possible. As the men pitched their tents, I brought Helen out from the covered cart. There was no sense trying to keep her hidden here.

 

"The men will want to mingle with the women here," Lukka told me.

 

I nodded, but warned, "Tell them to be careful and mind their manners. I doubt that these women are the kind who take to strangers."

 

He made a tiny smile. "They all seem to be well protected by family males," he agreed. "Still-no harm in being friendly."

 

"Just make certain that they're not so friendly they get their throats cut."

 

Ben-Jameen came back to us as the sun dipped below the western mountains and the long violet shadows crept across the plain.

 

"Joshua invites you to have supper with him in his tent." He seemed excited and pleased.

 

Just then Helen came out of my tent, freshly washed in water brought up from the distant river, clothed in a long pleated gown of crimson, a golden necklace and bracelet her only jewelry.

 

Ben-Jameen gaped at her.

 

"This is Helen, princess of the lost city of Troy," I said, deciding not to mention that she was Queen of Sparta. "She will accompany me at supper."

 

It took the youth several moments to get his mouth closed and his eyes off Helen. Finally he turned to me and said, "Among us, women do not eat with men."

 

"Your leader will have to make an exception in this case."

 

Ben-Jameen nodded dumbly and scrambled off to inform Joshua of this startling turn of events.

 

Helen stepped close to me. "I can stay here, Orion. It's not wise to cause trouble over me."

 

I disagreed. "It's necessary for you to come with me. I want this Joshua, whoever he is, to realize that he can't command me as if I were his servant."

 

"Ah, I understand," she said. Then, with a smile, "And I thought you couldn't bear the thought of taking a meal without me by your side."

 

I smiled back. "That, too."

 

Ben-Jameen returned with a guard of honor, six men in clean robes, armed only with short swords scabbarded at their sides, who escorted us to a wide, low tent of goat skins. I had to duck to get through the entrance flap.

 

Inside, the tent was spacious. Worn carpets covered the ground. A low table was spread with steaming bowls of meat and platters of olives, onions, and greens I could not identify. A dozen old men sat around the table, on brightly decorated cushions and pillows. At the center of the table sat a younger man, his long hair and beard still dark, his eyes bright with an inner fire.

 

It was Joshua's eyes that sent a warning alarm tingling along my nerves. They blazed with the light of a zeal that knew no bounds, as if he were so certain that what he was doing was the right thing that he never questioned any action that popped into his thoughts. He was an intense, dedicated man in his late thirties or early forties, I guessed, lean as a sword and as straight, unbent even by the burdens of leading his people as they struggled to find a homeland for themselves.

 

Ben-Jameen performed the introductions. None of the Israelites stood, but Joshua invited us to sit at the empty places around the table once we had been properly introduced to everyone. I sat directly across the table from Joshua, Helen on my left, Ben-Jameen on my right. The men ignored Helen so thoroughly that I knew her presence disturbed them no end.

 

There was no wine at the table, only a thin fermented goat's milk that tasted so sour I preferred the water. The food was plentiful, though. For a nomadic tribe on the march through a hostile land, they had plenty to eat. At least, these leaders did.

 

Joshua remained silent as we ate, but he watched me carefully, his eyes never leaving me. The old men asked me hundreds of questions about who I was, where I came from, were my men truly Hittite soldiers, had the God of Israel really destroyed the Hittite empire? I answered as truthfully as I could, and as we finished the meal with dates and melons, I complimented Joshua on the food.

 

"Yes," he said, "this is truly a land of milk and honey, just as the Lord our God promised it would be."

 

"Tell me of your god," I said. "What does he look like? What do you call him?"

 

A gasp went around the table. Several of the old men actually pushed away, as if afraid I would infect them. Even Ben-Jameen edged slightly away from me.

 

"His name is never spoken," said Joshua, his voice reedy, nasal, his words coming fast, as if he were angry. "He is the Lord God of Israel, the God of our fathers."

 

"The most powerful God of all," said one of the old men.

 

"The only God," Joshua insisted firmly. "All other gods are false."

 

"He is a golden, radiant figure?" I asked.

 

"No one has ever seen Him," said Joshua, "and it is forbidden to make images of Him."

 

"How does he communicate with you?"

 

"He spoke directly to Moses," said the elder on Joshua's right. "He led us through the wilderness and gave Moses the tablets of the law."

 

"He has led us here," said Joshua, tapping a blunt forefinger on the table. "To Jericho. We crossed the River Jordan dry shod, just as He led Moses and our people across the Sea of Reeds. He has promised us this land of Canaan for our own. But if we can't conquer Jericho we will be nothing but wandering beggars, strangers in our own land, outcasts forever."

 

"Jericho commands the plain here, that I can see."

 

"Jericho commands the entire region. He who holds Jericho holds all of Canaan," he said. "That is why we must take the city. That is why you must help us."

 

"We are only two dozen men."

 

"Two dozen Hittite soldiers," Joshua said. "The same Hittites who razed Ugarit. Soldiers who are expert at siege warfare."

 

"But with so few..."

 

Joshua's eyes blazed at me. "You have been sent by God to help us. To refuse would mean refusing the God of Israel. That would be an extremely unwise thing to do."

 

I smiled back at him. "It would be impolite of me to refuse your request, after the hospitality you have shown us."

 

"You will help us, then?" Despite himself, he leaned forward eagerly.

 

"My men and I will do what we can," I said, realizing that I was dealing with a fanatic and there was no way out.

 

They all smiled and nodded their heads and murmured about the will of God.

 

But I added, "Once Jericho falls, we will be on our way to Egypt."

 

"Egypt!" The word went around the table as if it were a blasphemy.

 

"Egypt is our destination," I said calmly. "We will help you in your siege of Jericho, and then go on our way to that land."

 

Joshua smiled thinly. "After Jericho falls, you can go to Egypt or anywhere else you choose." He made it sound as if he were saying, You can go to hell, for all I care.

 

 

Chapter 28

 

"THIS is madness," Lukka said.

 

We stood in the rising heat of morning, at the edge of the Israelite camp, studying the triple walls of Jericho. At sunrise we had ridden completely around the besieged city, as close as a bowshot. The walls were enormous, much higher than Troy's and undoubtedly much thicker. To make things worse, a deep trench had been carved out of the bedrock in front of the main length of the wall. A drawbridge crossed it, although the bridge was pulled up tight against the city gate now. The trench was partially filled with garbage and debris, but still it was steep-walled and an obstacle that looked all but impassable.

 

"We'll never be able to get siege towers against those walls," Lukka told me. I reluctantly agreed with him. Jericho stood atop a low hill, its main wall slanting from the bedrock floor of the valley plain up along the crest of the hill. Where the wall was set at the floor of the plain, the trench protected it. Where it wound up along the crest, smaller retaining walls stood before it, making a triple set of barriers. The hillside itself was too steep to roll siege towers up its sides, and the walls were studded with strong round towers from which archers and slingers could pelt an attacker with arrows and stones.

 

"No wonder Joshua needs help," I grumbled.

 

Lukka squinted against the sun glare. "The people of Jericho have had a hundred generations to perfect their defenses. No wandering band of nomads is going to bring those walls down."

 

I grinned at him. "That's why Joshua so kindly invited us to stay with him-until those walls do come down."

 

"We will be here a long time, then."

 

Through the morning we rode the circuit of the walls several times, looking for a weakness that simply was not there. The only thing I noticed was that some sections of the walls seemed older than others, their bricks grayer and less evenly aligned.

 

"Earthquakes," said Lukka. "The walls are made of mud bricks. Once they dry they become as hard as stone. But an earthquake can tumble them."

 

An earthquake. The glimmer of an idea stirred in the back of my mind.

 

Lukka was pointing. "See how the wall is built in sections, with timbers dividing one section from the next? That way, even when an earthquake damages one section of the wall, the rest can remain standing."

 

I nodded, but my mind was elsewhere.

 

That night, as we lay down together in my tent, Helen asked, "How long will we have to stay among these awful people?"

 

"Until they take the city," I answered.

 

"But they may never..."

 

I silenced her with a kiss. We made love, and she drifted to sleep.

 

I closed my eyes too, and willed myself to that other realm where the so-called gods played their games with destiny. Concentrating every particle of my being, I crossed the gulf of space-time that divided my world from theirs.

 

Once again I stood in that golden aura. But I could see their city through the shining mist, its towers and spires seemed clearer to me than ever before.

 

"Ahriman," I called, with my mind as well as my voice. "Ahriman, my one-time enemy, where are you?"

 

"Not here, creature."

 

I turned and saw the haughty one I thought of as Hera. She wore a golden gown that left one shoulder bare, gathered at her waist by a chain of glittering jewels. Her dark hair hung in ringlets, her dark eyes probed me. With a smile that seemed almost menacing, she said: "At least you are dressed better than the last time we met."

 

I made a slight bow. My makeshift uniform of tunic and leather vest was somewhat better than the rags I had worn at Ilium.

 

"Are you here to draw more of my blood?" I asked.

 

Her smile widened slightly. "Not really. Perhaps I can save the blood that's still in your body. Our golden Apollo has gone quite mad, you know."

 

"He no longer calls himself Apollo."

 

She shrugged. "Names are not important here. I speak only so that your pitifully limited mind can understand."

 

"I am grateful for such kindness," I said. "The Golden One has found a tribe that worships him as their only god."

 

"Yes. And he seeks to eliminate the rest of us. And," she added, with an arch of her brows, "he is using you to help him."

 

I stood silently, digesting this news.

 

"Isn't he?" she demanded.

 

"I am helping the Israelites to conquer Jericho," I admitted. "Or, at least, I'm trying to..."

 

"That's part of his plan, I'm sure of it!"

 

"But I didn't know he is attempting to..." I recalled the word she had used, "...to eliminate you."

 

"You know now!"

 

"Does that mean he wants to kill you?"

 

She almost snarled at me. "He would if he could. But he'll never get that chance. We'll crush him-and you, too, if you continue to aid him in any way."

 

"But..."

 

Leveling an accusing finger at me, she warned, "There is no neutral ground, Orion. Either you cease your aid to him or you are our enemy. Do you understand?"

 

"I understand," I said.

 

"Then consider carefully the consequences of your actions."

 

"The one they call Athene," I said. "He promised me that..."

 

"His promises cannot be trusted. You know that."

 

"I want to revive her, to bring her back to life," I said.

 

"And he's offered you her life in exchange for your obedience." Hera shook her head angrily. "Leave your dead goddess to us, Orion. She is one of us, and not for the likes of you."

 

"Can she be revived?"

 

"That's not..."

 

"Can she be revived?" I shouted.

 

Her eyes widened, whether with anger or fear or something else, I could not tell. She took a deep breath, then replied calmly, evenly, "Such a thing is-possible. Just barely within the realm of possibility. But it's not for you to even dream of!"

 

"I do dream of it, I dream of nothing else."

 

"Orion, you poor worm, even if she could be revived, she would have nothing more to do with you. She is one of us, so far beyond you that..."

 

"I love her," I said. "That's the one advantage I have over you and your kind. I can love. So can she. But you can't. Neither you nor the Golden One nor any of the other gods. But she can, and she has loved me. And she died because of that."

 

"You are hopeless," Hera snapped. She turned away from me in a swirl of golden robes and disappeared into the shining mist.

 

I stood alone for several moments, then remembered why I had come here. To find Ahriman. The one the Achaians called Poseidon, the earth-shaker.

 

Closing my eyes, I visualized his hulking dark form, his heavy gray face, his burning eyes. I called him mentally, telling myself that if he would not come to me, then I must seek and find him.

 

I remembered, dimly, a forest of giant trees where Ahriman and his kind lived, in a continuum that existed somewhere, somewhen. Did it still exist? Could I find it?

 

A dark shadow passed over me. I sensed it even with my eyes closed. I opened them and found myself in a dark, brooding forest. Not a drop of sunlight penetrated the canopy of almost-black leaves far above me. The boles of huge trees stood around me like gray marble columns rising toward infinity. The ground between their trunks was cropped grass, as smooth and even as a park.

 

"Why are you here?"

 

Out of the darkness a darker shape took form: Ahriman, solid and massive, decked in clothes the color of the forest. But his eyes glowed like red-hot coals.

 

"To find you," I replied.

 

He stepped closer to me. In his harsh, labored whisper, he asked, "And why seek me?"

 

"I need your help."

 

He glared at me. It was like a volcano threatening to pour out lava. "I will not shake down the walls of Jericho for you, Orion. I will not help your golden madman in his wild schemes."

 

"It's not for him," I said.

 

"That makes no difference. It is enough for me to protect my own people in our own continuum. I will not become a party to the quarrels of the self-styled Creators. They did not create me or my kind. I owe them nothing."

 

"The Golden One promised he would revive Athene if I helped him," I said, ignoring his words. "He waits for me in the great pyramid in Egypt."

 

"He waits there to destroy you, once you have finished your usefulness to him."

 

"No," I said. "I will destroy him-somehow."

 

"And what of your dead goddess then?" he asked.

 

I had no answer.

 

Slowly Ahriman swung his massive head back and forth. "Orion, if you want an earthquake, you must make it for yourself."

 

I started to ask him what he meant, but the forest and Ahriman's dark, brooding presence slowly faded before my eyes, and I found myself sitting in the darkness of my tent, on the straw pallet next to Helen.

 

She was sitting up too, her eyes wide with terror.

 

"You were gone," she whispered, in a voice constricted by awe. "You were gone, and then you appeared beside me."

 

I put an arm around her bare shoulders and tried to calm her. "It's all right..."

 

"It's magic! Sorcery!" Her naked body was cold and trembling.

 

Pulling her close and wrapping both my arms around her, I said, "Helen, long ago I told you I was a servant of a god. That is the truth. Sometimes I must go to the gods, speak with them, ask them to help us."

 

She looked up at me. Even in the predawn shadows I could see the fear and wonder in her face. "You actually go to Olympos?"

 

"I don't know the name of the place, but-yes, I go to the home of the gods."

 

Helen fell silent, as if there were no words to express the shock she felt.

 

"They are not gods," I told her, "not in the sense that you believe. Certainly not in the sense that Joshua and his people believe. They care nothing for us, except to use us in their own schemes. They are not even immortal. The goddess that I once loved is dead, killed by one of her own kind."

 

"You loved a goddess?"

 

"I loved a woman who was one of the group whom you call gods and goddesses," I said. "Now she is dead, and I seek vengeance against the one who killed her."

 

"You seek vengeance against a god?"

 

"I seek vengeance against a madman who murdered my love."

 

Helen shook her lovely head. "This is all a dream, It must be a dream. Yet-dreams themselves are sent by the gods."

 

"It is no dream, Helen."

 

"I will try to understand the meaning of it," she said, ignoring my words. "The gods have sent us a message, and I will try to find its meaning."

 

It was her way of adjusting to what I had told her. I decided not to argue. Lying back on the pallet, I held her until she drifted back into sleep. My mind focused on Ahriman and his words to me: "Orion, if you want an earthquake, you must make it for yourself."

 

I thought I understood what he meant. With a smile, I went back to sleep.

 

 

Chapter 29

 

"TUNNEL under the wall?" Lukka seemed more amused than skeptical.

 

We were facing the western side of Jericho, where the main city wall climbed along the brow of the low hill. There were two smaller retaining walls at the base of the hill, one terraced a few yards above the other, but no defensive trench in front of them.

 

"Is it possible?" I asked.

 

He scratched at his beard. The hill on which Jericho stood was made from the debris of earlier settlements. Untold generations of mud-brick buildings had collapsed over the ages, from time, from the winter rains, from fire and enemies' destruction. Like all cities in this part of the world, Jericho rebuilt atop its own ruins, creating a growing mound that slowly elevated the city above the original plain.

 

"It would take a long time and a lot of workers," said Lukka, finally.

 

"We have plenty of both."

 

But he was still far from pleased. "Tunnels can be traps. Once they see that we are tunneling, they can come out from their walls and slaughter us. Or dig a counter tunnel and surprise us."

 

"Then we'll have to conceal it from them," I said glibly.

 

Lukka remained unconvinced.

 

But Joshua's eyes lit up when I explained my plan to him. "Once the tunnel is beneath the foundation of the main wall, we start a fire that will burn through the timbers and bring that section of the wall down."

 

He paced back and forth in his tent, his back slightly bent, his hands locked behind his back. Joshua was a surprisingly small man, but what he lacked in height and girth he made up in intensity. And although the Israelites seemed to be ruled by their council of elders, twelve men who represented each of their tribes, it was Joshua alone who made the military decisions.

 

Finally he wheeled toward me and bobbed his head, making his dark beard and long locks bounce. "Yes! The Lord God has sent us the answer. We will bring Jericho's wall down with a thundering crash! And all will see that the Lord God of Israel is mightier than any wall made by men!"

 

It was cosmically ironic. Joshua believed with every ounce of his being that I had been sent to him by his god. And truly, I had been. But I knew that if I tried to tell him that the god he adored was as human as he, merely a man from the distant future who had powers that made him appear godlike, Joshua would have blanched and accused me of blasphemy. If I told him that the god he worshiped was a murderer, a madman, a fugitive from his fellow "gods," a man I intended to destroy one day-Joshua would have had me killed on the spot.

 

So I remained silent and let him believe what he believed. His world was far simpler than mine, and in his own way Joshua was right: his god had sent me to help bring down Jericho's wall.

 

The secret of Jericho was its spring, a source of cool fresh water that bubbled out of the ground, from what Ben-Jameen had told me. That was why the city's eastern wall came down to the bedrock level: it protected the spring. Most of the towers were on that side; so was the trench and the main city gates.

 

Under the guise of tightening the siege around the city we put up a new group of tents on the western side of the hill and built a corral to hold horses, all out of bowshot range. One of the tents, the largest, was where we started digging. Joshua provided hundreds of men. None of them were slaves; there were no slaves in the Israelite camp. The men worked willingly. Not without complaining, arguing, grumbling. But they dug, while Lukka and his Hittites, as the Israelites called them, supervised the work.

 

Getting rid of the dirt became an immediate problem. We filled the tent with baskets of it by day, then carried the baskets a mile or so from the city and dumped them in the dark of night.

 

Timbers to shore up the tunnel were another problem, since trees were so scarce in this rocky desert land. Teams of men were sent northward along the river, to the land called Galilee, where they bartered for wood among the villagers who lived by that lake.

 

The ground was not too difficult for the bronze and copper pickaxes we had, so long as we stayed above bedrock. The layer of easy soil was barely deep enough to dig a tunnel. Our diggers had to work flat on their bellies. Later, I knew, when we reached the foundations of the two outer retaining walls, we would have real troubles.

 

I spent the nights with Helen, each of us growing edgier as the time dragged slowly by. She wanted to get away from this place, to resume our southward trek to Egypt.

 

"Leave now, tonight, right now," she exhorted me. "Just the two of us. They won't bother trying to follow or bring us back. Lukka is handling the digging, that's all they really want of you. We can get away!"

 

I stroked her golden hair, glowing in the pale light of the moon. "I can't leave Lukka and his men. They trust me. And there's no telling what Joshua would do if we ran off. He's a fanatic. He might slaughter Lukka and the men once the tunnel is finished: sacrifice them to his god."

 

"What of it? They will die one day, sooner or later. They are soldiers, they expect to be killed."

 

"I can't do that," I said.

 

"Orion, I'm afraid of this place. I'm afraid that the gods you visit will take you away from me forever."

 

With a shake of my head I told her, "No. I promised you I would bring you to Egypt and that is what I will do. Only after that will I deal with the one I seek."

 

"Then let us go to Egypt now! Forget Lukka and the others. Tell the gods to bring us to Egypt now, tonight!"

 

"I don't tell the gods anything," I said.

 

"Then let me speak with them. I am a queen, after all, and a daughter of Zeus himself. They will listen to me."

 

"There are times," I said, "when you speak like a spoiled little child who is so totally self-centered that she deserves a spanking."

 

She knew when she had reached the limit of my patience. Winding her arms around my neck, she breathed, "I've never been spanked. You wouldn't be so brutal to me, would you?"

 

"I might."

 

"Couldn't you think of some other punishment?" Her fingers traced down my spine. "Something that would give you more pleasure?"

 

I played the game. "What do you have in mind?"

 

She spent much of the night showing me.

 

Although Helen and I usually took our meals with Lukka and the men, at our own fire by our own tents, now and then Joshua or Ben-Jameen would invite me to have supper with them. Me, alone. They made it clear that women did not eat with the men. I declined most of these invitations, but out of politeness I accepted a few.

 

Joshua was always surrounded by the elders or priests, with plenty of servants and women bustling around his table. The talk was always of the destiny of the Children of Israel, and how their god rescued them from slavery in Egypt and promised them dominance over this land they called Canaan.

 

Ben-Jameen, his father, and brothers spoke of different things when I ate with them. The old man recalled his days of slavery in Egypt, laboring as a brickmaker for the king, whom he called pharaoh. Once I hinted that Joshua seemed like a fanatic to me. The old man smiled tolerantly.

 

"He lives in the shadow of Moses. It is not easy to bear the burden of leadership after the greatest leader of all men has gone on to join Abraham and Isaac."

 

Ben-Jameen chimed in, "Joshua is trying to make an army out of a people who were slaves. He is trying to create discipline and courage where there has been little more than hunger and fear."

 

I agreed that it took an extraordinary man to accomplish that. And I began looking at these Israelites with fresh eyes, afterward. Unlike the Achaians at Troy, who were the topmost level of a strictly hierarchical society, the warrior class, hereditary plunderers, the Israelites were an entire nation: men, women, children, flocks, tents, all their possessions, wandering through this sun-blasted land of rocks and mountains seeking a place of their own. They had no warrior class. The only special class I could see were the priests, and even they worked with their hands when they had to. I began to feel a new respect for them, and wondered if the promises of their god would ever be fulfilled.

 

Shortly after noon on the fourth day of the digging, Lukka came out of the big tent, squinted up painfully at the merciless sun, and walked toward me. As always, no matter heat or cold, he wore his leather harness and weapons. I knew that his coat of mail and his iron helmet were close to hand. Lukka was ready for battle at all times.

 

I was standing on a low rise, examining the distant wall of Jericho. Not a sign of activity. Not a sentry in sight. The city wavered in the heat haze as the sun blasted down on my bare shoulders and neck. I had stripped down to my kilt.

 

We had fired a few flaming arrows into the city that morning. Each day we made a small demonstration of force somewhere along the western wall, to make the city's defenders believe that we were there probing for a weak spot. But in the noonday sun no one stirred. Or, hardly anyone.

 

Lukka was dripping sweat by the time he reached me. I had tuned my body to accommodate the heat, opening up the capillaries just under the skin and adjusting my body temperature. Like any human being, I needed water to stay alive. Unlike ordinary humans, I could keep the water in my vital systems for a much longer time; I sweated away only a small fraction of it.

 

"You must be part camel," Lukka said, as I offered him the canteen I carried. He gulped at it thirstily.

 

"How goes the work?" I asked.

 

"We've reached the base of the outermost wall. I've given the workers some of our own iron spear points to attack the bricks. They're as hard as stone."

 

"How long will it take to break through?"

 

He shrugged his bare shoulders, making the leather harness creak slightly. "A day for each one. We could work the night through."

 

"Let me see," I said, striding toward the tent.

 

It was cooler under its shade, but the air inside the tent was close and confining. Dust hovered, thick enough to make me sneeze. Lukka ordered the workers to stop and leave the tunnel. I got down on my hands and knees, ducked into the darkness, and wormed my way forward.

 

The tunnel had been dug wide enough for two men to crawl through, side by side. Lukka went in with me, slightly behind. We carried no lights, but every dozen feet or so the workers had poked a reed-thin hole up through the ground's surface. They provided air to breathe and a dim scattering of light that was barely enough to avert total darkness.

 

Quickly enough we came to the tunnel's end: a blank facing of stone-hard bricks. Two short poles lay on the ground, each with an iron spear point lashed to it. The bricks were scratched and gouged.

 

In the dim light I took one of the poles in my hands and jabbed it at the bricks. A dull chunking sound, and a few flakes of dried mud fell away.

 

"This is going to be slow work," I said.

 

"And noisy," Lukka pointed out. "Especially if we work at night, they'll hear us from inside the city."

 

He was right, as usual.

 

We scuttled out of the tunnel like a pair of rodents scrabbling through their lair. The bright sun and air of daylight seemed wonderful, despite the heat.

 

"No night work," I said to Lukka. "The time we might gain isn't worth the risk of being discovered."

 

"When we get close to the main wall, they'll hear us chipping away even in the daytime," he said.

 

"We'll have to think of something, then."

 

It was Joshua who thought of the solution. That night, when I told him we were getting close enough to be heard inside the city, he curled his fingers through his beard for several long moments, then looked up with a fierce smile.

 

"We will make so much noise that they will never hear your diggers at work," he said. "We will make a joyful noise unto the Lord."

 

I was not certain that his plan made any sense, but Joshua insisted that all would be well and told me to resume digging in the morning.

 

On my way back to my own tent that evening, as the sun dipped below the western mountains, turning them deep violet and the sky a blazing golden red, a stranger stepped in front of me.

 

"Orion," he whispered. "Come with me."

 

He was muffled in a long gray robe with a dark burnoose over it, the hood thrown over his head and hiding the features of his face.

 

But I knew who he was, and followed him wordlessly as he picked his way through the tents of the Israelite camp and out across the green field toward the distant river.

 

"This is far enough," I said at last. "We can stop here. Even if you glow like a star no one from the camp will notice."

 

He laughed, a low chuckle deep in his throat. "Not much chance of my putting out enough radiation for them to find me."

 

By them, I knew he did not mean the Israelites.

 

"You are helping these people to overcome Jericho. That pleases me."

 

"Will I be able to leave for Egypt once Jericho is taken?" I asked.

 

"Of course." He seemed surprised that I asked.

 

"And you will revive Athene?"

 

"I will try, Orion. I will try. I can promise nothing more. There are difficulties-enormous difficulties. They are trying to stop me."

 

"I know."

 

"They've contacted you?"

 

"I contacted them. They think you've gone mad."

 

He laughed again. Bitterly. "I struggle alone to uphold the continuum-their continuum-so that they can continue to exist. I stand between them and utter destruction. I protect the Earth and my creatures with every particle of my strength and wisdom. And they call that madness. The fools!"

 

"Hera told me that if I help you, she and the others will destroy me."

 

In the shadow of his hood I could not make out the features of his face. It was the first time I had met the Golden One that he did not radiate light and splendor.

 

When he failed to reply, I added, "And you have warned me that if I fail to help you, you will destroy me."

 

"And you have told me, Orion, that you want to destroy me. A pretty situation."

 

"Can you revive Athene?"

 

"If I can't, no one else can. No one else would even try, Orion. It takes a... madman, like me, to even attempt such a thing."

 

"Then I will continue to help you."

 

"And you will tell me exactly what they say to you, whenever they contact you again."

 

"If you wish," I said.

 

"I do not wish, Orion. I command. I can see your thoughts as clearly as words written across the sky in fire. You cannot hide anything from me."

 

"Then you see your own death."

 

He laughed, with genuine humor this time. "Ah, Orion, you truly believe that you can conquer the gods."

 

"You are not gods. You can delude ignorant nomads such as Joshua and his people, but I know you better."

 

"Of course you do," he patronized. "Now, get back to your Helen and let her try to wheedle you off to Egypt again."

 

There was nothing he did not know, I realized. He stood before me, and even in his disguise I could sense his condescending smile.

 

"Tell me one thing," I asked. "Why is Jericho so important? Why are these people of Joshua's so dear to your heart? Once you said that you are not so egocentric as to be pleased when people worship you. Is that still true?"

 

For a moment or two he did not answer. When he finally did, his voice was low and serious. "Yes, it is still true, Orion. It is pleasant to have my creatures adore me, I admit. But the real reason for Jericho, the real reason I will bring these people to rule this land of Canaan, is to humble those others who seek to thwart my plans. They stopped me at Troy, with your help. They will not stop me here!"

 

I had no reply to his words.

 

"They think me mad, do they? We shall see who is the true protector of the continuum. They will all bow to me, Orion. All of them!"

 

He turned and walked toward the river alone. I watched him in the deepening shadows of night, as the stars came out one by one, until his figure had disappeared into the darkness.

 

 

Chapter 30

 

"THIS could destroy all our plans, all our hopes."

 

Ben-Jameen's youthful face looked very grave. He stood in my tent alongside Lukka, with one of the Hatti soldiers behind, head hung low, two other soldiers flanking him, and a small angry crowd of Israelite men standing just outside in ominous silence.

 

Helen sat in the far corner of the tent, on a wooden chair that had been given to me by one of Ben-Jameen's brothers. One of the women had brought her a soft, feathered cushion, gaily decorated in bold stripes of red and blue.

 

But Ben-Jameen ignored her and said to me, "This Hittite soldier has had his way with one of the young women of my tribe, and now refuses to do the right thing by her."

 

I was surprised, almost stunned, at this. For weeks now we had lived in the Israelite camp without a hint of trouble. Hardly any of the women would have anything to do with men who were not of their own tribes. The few who did, young widows and the rare unmarried woman who did not worry about her virginity, had been enough to keep Lukka and his men reasonably happy.

 

But now one of the young women demanded marriage as the price of her lovemaking.

 

I looked at Lukka. His face was grimly impassive as he stood before me. I saw that his sword was at his side. Ben-Jameen, standing beside him, looked almost like a child: smaller, slimmer, his youthful face unlined, unscarred by battle. But he was representing the honor of his tribe.

 

"Bring the man before me," I said.

 

Lukka raised a hand. "With your permission, my lord, I will speak for the prisoner."

 

I raised an eyebrow.

 

"It is customary among us," said Lukka. "I am his commanding officer. I am responsible for his conduct."

 

So that was the way the game would be played, I said to myself. Lukka was standing between me and the accused man. If I wanted to mete out punishment, it would have to touch Lukka first.

 

Ben-Jameen glanced at the bearded soldier, and seemed to understand what Lukka's words implied.

 

"The young lady in question," I asked Ben-Jameen, "was she forced?"

 

He shook his head. "She does not claim so."

 

"Was she a virgin?"

 

Ben-Jameen's eyes widened. "Of course!"

 

I turned to Lukka. He shrugged slightly, "That is a matter of her word against the word of the accused."

 

Ben-Jameen's face went red. "Do you mean that you claim she was not?"

 

I held up both hands to stop the fight before it truly started. "There is no way to prove the point, one way or the other." Then I asked, "What does she want of this man?"

 

"Marriage."

 

"Does her father approve of this?"

 

"He demands it!"

 

I looked past them to the accused soldier, but his head was bowed so low I could not see his face. To Lukka, I asked, "Is the man willing to marry this woman?"

 

"Yes, he will marry her."

 

I thought I saw the soldier twitch, as if a hot needle had been jabbed into his flesh.

 

"Then what is the problem?"

 

"To marry into our tribe," Ben-Jameen said, "it is necessary to accept our religion."

 

"And that he will not do," said Lukka. "His god is Taru, the storm god, not some invisible spirit with no name."

 

I thought Ben-Jameen would burst. He turned flame red from the roots of his scalp all the way down his neck. If he had carried a weapon he would have attacked Lukka on the spot, I am sure.

 

I took him by the shoulders and made him face me. "Different men worship different gods, my friend," I said, as softly as I dared. "You know that."

 

He took a deep, shuddering breath. His face returned to something more like its normal color.

 

"Besides," Lukka added, "to join their religion he would have to be circumcised, and that he will not do."

 

"Is that necessary?" I asked Ben-Jameen.

 

He nodded.

 

I could hardly blame the man for refusing to allow himself to be circumcised. Yet he had picked the wrong woman to play with. She gave him sex and now expected her payment of marriage. The Israelites demanded that their women marry only men of their own faith, so he had to accept her religion. If he refused, we might well be overrun by her angry relatives who would slaughter us in the name of family honor and religious purity. Of course, we would take many of them to the grave with us, but it would end with all of us dead and Jericho still standing.

 

Almost, I wished that the Golden One was truly a wise and compassionate god who would descend upon us and bring the light of sweet reason to this thorny problem. Almost.

 

I looked Ben-Jameen in the eye and said, "My friend, it seems to me that if the man is willing to marry the young lady, that is sufficient. He did not go to her for religious revelation, but for love. You can't expect him to change his religion."

 

Before he could think of a reply, I added, "And, as you know, we have the sworn word of Joshua himself that once Jericho has fallen, we will be permitted to leave you and go on our way to Egypt. Is the young lady willing to accompany her husband to that land? Is her family willing to see her part from them?"

 

The youthful Israelite took a long time to consider his answer, frowning with thought as we all stood there, waiting for him to respond. He knew as well as I what was at stake here. Would he be willing to sacrifice this girl's honor for the sake of conquering Jericho?

 

It was Helen who broke the silence.

 

She rose from her chair and walked slowly toward me, saying, "You men cause such troubles! The poor girl, I understand how she feels."

 

Ben-Jameen stared at her. Helen wore a simple modest robe, but her golden hair and obvious beauty made even the simplest garments seem royal.

 

She came up beside me, and twisted the ring from her right index finger. It was a heavy circle of gold, set with a shining ruby.

 

"Give this to your kinswoman," Helen said, "and tell her it is a gift of a queen. She must be content with it, for the man she loves cannot marry her."

 

"But my lady..."

 

"Shush," said Helen. "What kind of a husband would she have, if he did marry her? An unwilling man who would blame her for every drop of rain that falls upon him. A soldier who knows nothing but violence, and who would run away from her the first chance he gets. Or drag her back to Egypt, the land of her slavery. Tell her father that he should be happy to be rid of him. After Jericho falls and we have left, let him consider her a widow. This ring will help her to find a fitting husband from among her own people."

 

"But her honor," said Ben-Jameen.

 

"Nothing can replace that. Yet she gave it away willingly enough, did she not? She has made a grievous mistake. Don't force her to compound it with an even greater one."

 

Ben-Jameen held the ring in one hand. He looked at Helen, then turned to me. Scratching his head, he finally said, "I will bring this to her father, and see if he agrees with your wisdom, my lady."

 

"He will," Helen replied.

 

Ben-Jameen walked slowly out of my tent, passing the guarded soldier like a man lost so deeply in thought that he barely sees where he is heading. The men outside babbled and muttered and chattered as they all headed back toward the tents of their tribe.

 

I smiled at Helen. "Thank you. That was very thoughtful of you, very wise. And very generous."

 

She made a haughty little smile back. "Any price is worth it if it speeds the day when we can leave this wretched place."

 

Lukka agreed. Waving a hand to tell his soldiers to get back to their tents, he said to me, "Maybe now we can get back to the business of bringing down that damned wall."

 

 

Chapter 31

 

JOSHUA'S "joyful noise unto the Lord" consisted of a marching band. He gathered together all the priests of his people in their most colorful robes and turbans, and had them march around the city's walls, carrying a beautifully crafted gold-plated wooden chest on a pair of long poles, preceded by seven men blowing on ram's horn trumpets and followed by more trumpets, drums, and cymbals.

 

The chest was a religious icon that Joshua called the ark of the covenant. I was never allowed to get close enough to see it in detail. In fact, Ben-Jameen insisted that merely to touch it would mean instant death. I wondered if it were some kind of equipment for communicating with the other realm in which the Golden One and his kind lived, but Ben-Jameen told me it contained two stone tablets bearing the laws given directly to Moses by their god.

 

I knew better than to argue religion, even with the youthful Ben-Jameen. The priests and their marching band made their joyful noise, circling the city walls all day long, fresh men coming up to replace tired ones as the day wore on.

 

Under cover of their music and chanting, we chipped away at the foundations of the main wall. Using Hittite iron spear points, we had broken through the two outer retaining walls, then tunneled fairly easily through the accumulated debris of thousands of years that made up Jericho's hill. There was room now for our diggers to make the tunnel high enough for a man to stand in. When we hit the main wall's foundations, Joshua started his priests in motion.

 

At first they marched some distance away from the wall, and the soldiers up on the parapets eyed them very suspiciously, waiting for some kind of surprise attack. But even by the end of the first day, more and more women and children were up on the walls, watching this strange and colorful procession.

 

For six days they marched and played their instruments and chanted while we scraped and scratched at the massive foundation of the wall. The citizens of Jericho lined the parapets now, waving and jeering. Now and then some child would throw something, but no missile of war was directed at the marchers. Perhaps the people of the city thought it unwise to fire upon priests, or unlucky to risk incurring the wrath of a god. Perhaps they thought that the Israelites were trying to drive them all mad with the constant music and chanting.

 

That is what Helen thought. "I can't bear that horrid noise anymore! My ears ache from it!"

 

It was night, and the only sounds outside our tent were the drone of insects and the distant voice of a mother singing a soft lullaby to her children.

 

"If you truly visit the gods," she said, "why can't you ask them to topple the wall for you?"

 

I smiled. "I did. And they told me to do it myself."

 

Despite herself, Helen smiled back. "The gods are not always kind to us, are they?"

 

"Tomorrow will be the end of it," I said to her. "We've finished the digging. Now comes the fire."

 

I left Helen alone in our tent and went out into the darkness to supervise the preparations for tomorrow's assault. All the men who had been working so hard at the digging were now bringing brushwood from the fields, dragging it through the tunnel, and piling it up at the base of the main wall's foundation.

 

As I had expected, the wall's dried bricks were framed every few yards by stout timbers. Some of them were very ancient, dry as tinder. When they caught fire, the whole section of the wall would cave in. Or so I hoped.

 

Through the whole long night the men brought the brushwood to the tunnel and packed it against the wall's foundation. Lukka and two of his best men were down there, supervising the work and poking air holes along the base of the wall, so that the fire would not choke itself to death.

 

Finally it was finished. Lukka came out as the first hint of gray began to lighten the sky behind the mountains of Gilead and Moab, far across the Jordan.

 

I went in to make a final inspection, crawling along the first part of the tunnel on my belly in total darkness, feeling like an earthworm, blind and hemmed in on all sides. After what seemed like an hour, I felt the roof of the tunnel rising. I could get up and crawl on my hands and knees and, at last, stand like a man once more.

 

I carried a torch with me, and pieces of flint and iron to strike a spark that would light it. But not until the day was bright and Joshua's priests were parading around the walls again. We wanted to keep the attention of Jericho's defenders on the music and the marchers as long as possible, to let the fire get so good a start that there would be no way to put it out before the wall caved in. I also sensed that Joshua valued the public-relations aspect of making it appear as if the priests' noise-making brought down the wall.

 

He was keenly aware of the value of manipulating people's opinions. Time and again he compared their crossing of the Jordan River dry-shod with Moses's leading them across the Sea of Reeds in Egypt. And he kept insisting that the people of Canaan must see that the God of Israel was mightier than their own gods, whom he considered to be false and nonexistent.

 

I had also brought a small candle with me, and used the flint to light it once I had reached the tunnel's end. The brushwood seemed to be ready to burn: enough of it packed against and under the wall's foundation to ignite the timbers. I could smell the night air, slightly damp, coming through the holes Lukka had poked through to the surface. It seemed enough to feed the fire its needed oxygen. All was ready, I thought.

 

I doused the candle, but the light did not disappear. Instead, it grew and glowed all around me until I realized that I had been transported once again to the realm of the Creators.

 

Four of them faced me, against that featureless glow of gold that they used to keep their world hidden from my eyes. Yet, if I concentrated hard enough, I could make out the faint traces of strange shapes behind them. Equipment of some kind? Instruments? We seemed to be in a huge chamber, rather than outdoors. A laboratory? A control center?

 

I recognized the neatly bearded Zeus, with Hera standing beside him. The two others were male; I had seen them before. One was slim and wiry, although as tall as Zeus. His face was narrow, with a long pointed chin, and closely cropped jet-black hair that came to a V on his high forehead that exactly matched the angle of his chin. His smile was sardonic; his eyes mischievous. I thought of him as Hermes, the messenger of the gods, the trickster and patron of thieves. The other was burly, big in the shoulders and arms, with thickly curled red hair and eyes as tawny as a lion's. Ares, god of war. Obviously.

 

All of them wore identical suits of shimmering metallic fabric, almost like uniforms. The only differences among them were color: Zeus wore gold, Hera copper red, Hermes was clad in silver, Ares in bronze.