Into the Tent

His son's body has been outside the walls for twelve days, dragged behind a chariot every morning by the man who killed him. He has watched it from the wall each time.

There is a wagon loaded with the treasury of the city: cauldrons, tripods, gold by weight, twelve robes. Enough to buy a body back, if the man will sell.

He can send a herald. That is what kings do. A herald carries the ransom, makes the offer, and if the answer is no, the king has not been humiliated and the city has not watched its king humiliated. If the answer is a spear, the city has lost a herald.

Or he can go himself, at night, unarmed, through the enemy lines and into the tent of the man who has killed most of his sons — and get on his knees, and take that man's hands, and kiss them, and ask.

He is old. He has fifty sons and he is doing this for one of them. Everyone in the palace has told him not to go.