37

Ilium and Olympos

As it turns out, I can’t do it. I don’t have the guts or balls or ruthlessness or—perhaps—courage. I can’t kidnap Hector’s child, even to save Ilium. Even to save the child himself. Even to save my own life.

It isn’t dawn yet when I QT to Hector’s huge home in Ilium. I was here just two evenings before when—morphed then as the now-decapitated spearman Dolon—I followed Hector home in search of his wife and son. Since I know the layout from that visit, I QT directly to the nursery, not far from Andromache’s sleeping chamber. Hector’s son, less than a year old, is in a wonderfully carved cradle with mosquito netting draped over it. Nearby sleeps the same nurse who was on the battlements of Troy with Andromache that evening when Hector accidentally frightened his son with the reflection in his polished war helmet. She’s also fast asleep, reclining on a nearby couch, wearing a thin, diaphanous gown draped with all the complexity of an Aubrey Beardsley print. Even this sleeping gown is sashed under her breasts in the Greek and Trojan manner, showing how large and white the nurse’s bosom is, visible in the reflected light from the guardsmen’s fire tripods on the terrace beyond. I’d guessed earlier that she’s a wet nurse for the baby. This is relevant, actually, because my plot hinges on being able to kidnap the baby with the nurse, leaving Andromache behind—after “Aphrodite” appears to her and tells her that the child is being kidnapped by the gods, as punishment for unnamed failings on the part of the Trojans, and that if Hector wants the child, he can damned well come to Olympos to get him, blah, blah, blah.

First I have to gather up the baby and then grab the nurse—I suspect that she might be stronger than me, and almost certainly more adept at fighting, so I’ll taser her if I have to, although I don’t want to—and then QT the two of them to that rapidly populating hill in ancient Indiana, find Nightenhelser—I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with Patroclus—and convince the scholic to watch over the infant and his nurse until I come back for them.

Will Nightenhelser be up to the task of riding herd on this Trojan nurse for the days, weeks, or months until all this is over? Given the matchup of a Twentieth Century male classics professor versus a Trojan wet nurse circa 1200 b.c., I’d put my money on the nurse. And give my opponents good odds. Well, that’s Nightenhelser’s problem. My job is to find leverage against Hector, a way to convince him that he has to fight the gods—just as Patroclus’ “death” was my best shot to enroll Achilles into this suicidal crusade—and that leverage is sleeping in front of me right now.

Little Scamandrius, whom the people of Ilium lovingly call “Astyanax, Lord of the City,” mewls slightly in his sleep and rubs tiny fists against his reddened cheeks. Even though invisible under the Hades Helmet, I freeze and watch the nurse. She sleeps on, although I know that an actual cry from the baby will almost certainly wake her.

I don’t know why I pull off the cowl of the Hades Helmet, but I do, becoming visible to myself. There’s no one else here except my two victims, and they’ll be 10,000 miles away from here in a few seconds, unable to give my description to any Trojan police sketch artist.

I tiptoe closer and remove the mosquito netting from above the infant. A breeze blows in from the distant sea and flutters both the terrace curtains and the gauzier material around the crib. Without a sound, the baby opens his blue eyes and looks right at me. Then he smiles at me, his kidnapper, although I thought little pre-toddlers were afraid of strangers, much less of strangers in their bedroom in the middle of the night. But what do I know about kids? My wife and I never had any, and all the students I taught over the years were actually partially or poorly formed adults, all gangly and bumpy and hairy and socially awkward and goofy looking. I couldn’t even have told you that babies less than a year old could smile.

But Scamandrius is smiling at me. In a second he’s going to start making noise and I’ll have to grab him, grab the nurse, QT us the hell out of here—can I QT two other people along with me? We’ll find out in a second. Then I have to come back and use my last three minutes of morphing time to steal Aphrodite’s form and give my ultimatum to Andromache.

Will Hector’s wife be hysterical? Will she weep and scream? I doubt it. After all, in recent years she’s seen Achilles kill her father and her seven brothers, she’s watched her mother become Achilles’ plunder and then die trying to give birth to her rapist’s bastard, she’s watched her home occupied and defiled, and still she’s borne up—not only borne up, but bore a healthy son to her husband, Hector. And now she has to watch Hector go out to battle every day, knowing in her heart that her beloved’s fate has already been sealed by the cruel will of the gods. No, this is no weak woman. Even morphed as Aphrodite, I’d better keep a keen eye on Andromache’s sleeves to make sure she doesn’t have any daggers with which to greet the goddess’s news of the kidnapping.

I actually reach for the baby, my fingers with their dirty nails just inches away from his pink flesh, before drawing back.

I can’t do it.

I can’t do it.

Stunned by my own impotence even in the face of doom—everyone’s doom, for even the Greeks will be punished through their victory—I stagger out of the nursery, not even bothering to pull the Hades Helmet back on.

I put my hand on the QT medallion, but pause. Where do I go? Whatever Achilles is doing, it doesn’t really matter now. He can’t conquer Olympos on his own, or even with the Achaean army if the Trojans are still at war with them. In fact, my little charade with the man-killer may have been for nothing—Hector and his hordes may beat the Achaeans this very morning while Achilles is still ripping his hair out and screaming in grief over Patroclus’ apparent murder. Achilles doesn’t give a damn about the Trojans right now. And when Hector and the mystery man Athena promised Achilles—to lead him to Hector, she said, to show him how to get to Olympos—don’t come to him, will he know that my act was only an act? Probably. Then the real Athena will visit Achilles to see what’s wrong and will protest her innocence to the fleet-footed man-killer, and perhaps—just perhaps—the Iliad will get back on track.

It doesn’t matter.

This whole idiot plan is finished. So is Thomas Hockenberry, Ph.D. Past time, probably.

But where to go until the violent Muse or the reawakened Aphrodite finally find me? Go visit Nightenhelser and pissed-off Patroclus? See how long it takes the gods to track my quantum trail once they understand what I’ve done . . . tried to do?

No. That would just bring doom down on Nightenhelser. Let him stay there in 1200 b.c. Indiana and procreate with the lovely Indian maidens, perhaps start a university and teach classics—although most of the classical tales haven’t happened yet—and good luck to him about Patroclus, whom I have no urge to taser again just to drag back to Achilles’ tent. “April fool!” I could have my three-minute-morph Athena say. “Here’s your friend back, Achilles. No hard feelings?”

No, I’ll leave them alone there in Indiana.

Where to go? Olympos? The thought of the Muse hunting for me there, of Zeus and his radar eyes returning, of Aphrodite awakening . . . well, not to Olympos. Not tonight.

I think of one place and visualize it and touch the QT medallion and twist it and go there before I can change my mind.

I’m visible and Helen sees me at once in the soft light of candles. She rises on one arm on her cushions and says, “Hock-en-bear-eeee?”

I stand in her bedchamber and say nothing. I don’t know why I’m here. If she calls her guards or even comes toward me with that dagger, I feel too tired to fight, too tired even to flee on the QT. I don’t even think to wonder why her bedchamber is illuminated by candles at four-thirty in the morning.