Read Troy 03 - Fall of Kings for Free Online Page B

ornate chariot encrusted with gold and gems had been drawn up. Priam turned to his son.
    “Now let us return to the living and enjoy this day of triumph.”
    “It was good for those soldiers to see us together,” Hektor replied mildly.
    Priam turned on him with anger in his eyes. His voice again was cold and rasping. “Never ask me to do that again, boy. A king is not a nursemaid. And the smell in there was nauseating.”
    Xander saw Hektor’s jaw set, but he stepped lightly into the chariot and took up the reins. Priam climbed in beside him. “You should have left them all on the beach at Carpea. They would have welcomed an honorable death for their king and their city,” he said.
    Hektor flicked at the reins, and the two white geldings leaned into the traces. The chariot pulled smoothly away, the Royal Eagles loping alongside.
    Back in the courtyard the men were talking excitedly about the visit of the king and how he had spoken of his pride in them. Xander, saddened by Priam’s deceit, spoke of it to Zeotos later that night.
    “He seemed so…so genuinely interested in them, so warm, so compassionate. In truth, though, he cared nothing for them.”
    The surgeon chuckled. “You heard him tell the men he was proud of them and tell Hektor he was a king, not a nursemaid?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you assume he was lying to the men and telling the truth to Hektor?”
    Xander nodded. “Am I wrong, sir?”
    “Perhaps, Xander. Priam is a complex man. It is possible that his words to the injured and the dying were heartfelt and that his callous comments to Hektor were made to disguise his emotions.”
    “You think so?” Xander asked, his heart lifting.
    “No. Priam is a cold and wretched creature. Although,” Zeotos added with a wink, “now it might be I who am lying. The point is, Xander, that it is unwise to form judgments on such little evidence.”
    “Now I am completely confused,” the young man admitted.
    “Which was my intention. You are a fine lad, Xander, honest, direct, and without guile. Priam is a man so drenched in deceit, even he would no longer know which—if any—of his statements was genuine. In the end it doesn’t matter. The men who heard him praise them had their spirits lifted. Indeed, some of them may even recover now, and it would then be fair to say that Priam healed them. So do not be downcast by a few callous words from a drunken king.”
             
    Andromache climbed the long hill toward the palace, moonlight glinting on the golden, gem-encrusted gown she wore. Her long flame-red hair was decorated with emeralds in a braid of gold. She was weary as she walked, not physically tired, for she was young and strong, but drained by a day of jostling crowds and cloying conversation rich with insincerity. Andromache still could hear music and laughter from the square. There was no joy in the sound. The atmosphere at the feast had been tense, the laughter forced and strident.
    The men had talked of victory, but Andromache had heard the fear in their voices, seen it shining in their eyes. Priam had lifted the crowd with a powerful speech in which he had extolled the heroic virtues of Hektor and the Trojan Horse. But the effect had been ephemeral. All at the feast knew the reality.
    Many merchant families already had left the city, and most of the warehouses stood empty. The wealth that had flowed like a golden river into the city was slowing. Soon it would be merely a trickle. How long, then, before the enemy forces were camped outside the walls, readying their ladders and their battering rams, sharpening their swords, and preparing for slaughter and plunder?
    That was why, Andromache knew, everyone wanted to be close to her husband, Hektor, talking to him, clapping him on the back, telling him how they had prayed for his safe homecoming. The last part was probably true. More than the huge walls, more than the power of its soldiers and the wealth of its king, Hektor represented the