The next waking was slightly less unpleasant than the previous one.
I sat up in bed and sighed. It hurt, but bearably.
My ribcage was seriously banged up, but the ribs seemed intact. I'd had sad experience with that in my past life—broke them—but this didn't seem like that.
I got out of bed and turned from side to side. Terribly unpleasant, but the pain was dull and somehow distant.
Deep breath!
No, the ribs were definitely intact.
"You awake?" father looked into the room, and on his face, usually completely impenetrable, I could now read something vaguely resembling approval. "Let's go, your uncle's calling for you."
"What about the fisherman?" I asked. "Is he alive?"
"He's fine," Anchises reassured me. "The arrow had no head, just hit his rib. Our bonesetter cut it out and cauterized the blood. He'll live, and the king will reward him."
From the side room where I'd slept to the king's chambers was just a stone's throw.
Yeah, this wasn't Troy.
There were about ten small cubicles here where the royal family lived: his wife, two daughters and young son, which kind of hinted at my future.
Though we also followed Hittite customs. Warriors could choose as king not only a nephew, but even the husband of the eldest daughter.
That's the kind of eastern despotism we had, where the nobility didn't let kings get too cocky and held them by the throat.
Marx and Engels, who'd sliced up the history of human society into formations, were quietly weeping in the corner. They hadn't guessed right in a single place.
"Aeneas!" uncle spread his arms and hugged me.
That hurts, damn it!
"I was so upset when I heard your boasting at the feast, but now I'm proud of you. No one will say my brother's son is a blowhard. Well done!"
"What's going on with the Achaeans?" I asked.
"They're getting ready to sail away," Acoetes smirked. "The gods are not favorable to them on this campaign. They'll look for easier pickings."
"But these are Achaeans!" I looked at him intently.
"Achaeans," uncle looked at me in surprise. "So what?"
"They shouldn't leave!" I looked him right in the eyes harshly. "They'll come back anyway, uncle, just with bigger forces."
"That's not impossible," father's and his brother's faces turned to stone, and Acoetes sat thoughtfully in a carved chair with a curved back and propped his chin with his fist.
"Ahhiyawa is groaning without tin, they need the northern route, and Priam buys up almost everything at the source. In the land of Hatti there were small mines, but they've been exhausted. There's not a grain of tin there now."
"There are crop failures in the land of the Danaans," I continued. "A mercenary from Athens told me about it. There's drought there, and the land yields poorly. They have lots of strong guys they can't feed. They'll come back, uncle, you'll see. Yeah, we gave them a good beating, but they've already scouted everything they needed here. They found convenient bays on that shore, found water and villages where they'll get grain. Losing two ships is a small price for that knowledge."
"He's right," father said tersely. "Look, brother, even the boy understands this. I talked with Priam. Achaean envoys are demanding a share of the incoming tin and free passage north. And they're getting bolder every day. The treaty with the king of kings is becoming poor protection for us. And the kings themselves too."
"What about the king?" I turned to father.
I didn't know this. Nobody really knew this in the time I came from.
The hypothesis that Hattusa was sacked by "Sea Peoples" was far from accepted by everyone in the scholarly community. People simply abandoned the city, and then burned it.
No sword fragments, no bodies of the killed, no arrowheads in the walls—the usual signs of assault.
A huge, well-appointed and very rich city was simply abandoned.
Though there were some new theories, of course.
"Hattusa is built in a fertile valley, high in the mountains," father answered. "There was always plenty of water there. But now there's little, and there's been no rain for a long time. Peasants are fleeing from there, and there's simply nothing to feed the city with. Nomads have also started moving—things aren't any better for them. The Kaska, though savages, can field eight hundred chariots. The great king Suppiluliuma is thinking of moving the capital south."
"Haven't we paid tribute this year yet?" I asked, and when uncle shook his head, I continued. "Well, don't pay it then, you'll need it yourselves."
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" uncle Acoetes doubled over with laughter. "Brother, what's happened to your son! I don't recognize him! You'll need it yourselves! I'm dying of laughter right now!"
"It's not funny," father said, a thoughtful crease cutting across his forehead. "Aeneas is right, brother. The world is falling apart in shreds like a ragged tunic of a slave goatherd. The great king won't have time for us. And we need to kill the Achaeans. Let's sit down and think about how to do it cleverly. And you, son, sit down too. You've earned that right."
"Yes, sit down, nephew," the king nodded amiably, but a barely noticeable note of displeasure in his voice scratched at my heart.
No! It can't be! I must have imagined it!
Our war fleet was three pot-bellied merchant tubs that held fifty warriors.
My idea with coals and resin pleased everyone, so they didn't bother inventing anything extra.
The Achaeans didn't have much choice. They still hadn't gotten grain from us, and they needed to eat something on the way.
Two hundred fifty healthy men, of which three dozen were wounded. They definitely needed lots of food and clean water, and the nearest convenient harbor where they could spend the night and rob a couple villages was located across and downstream, on the Thracian shore.
Except they didn't know there was nobody there anymore.
On that side lived people with whom we'd concluded a treaty of hospitality, sacred in these parts. This meant they could freely come to our lands, and we to theirs. And nobody would offend anyone, touch property or make anyone a slave. They'd even provide shelter and table.
Such was life here, which had taught us to get along with neighbors.
With those same Achaeans, they said, it wasn't like that. There every petty king fought with his neighbor for generations over a field the size of a cloak. All the land was soaked with blood, and nobody wanted to yield.
It wasn't simple here either, but surviving together was somehow more convenient. We'd helped each other many times.