Odysseus: The Oath

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  His gaze was going dim again: ‘I don’t like the way you’re talking. I don’t like it when words are stronger than the sword. It’s not right.’

  ‘My friend, even animals have horns, claws and fangs and will happily fight each other to the death. We have more than that, Ajax, we have our hearts and our minds. I beg of you, wait and you’ll see.’

  Ajax remained silent, while his Trojan sword found its way back into its sheath.

  ‘I’ve never had glory,’ he said. ‘I’ve never had a real victory; no one has ever recognized my worth. I’m like that patient ox, or that obstinate ass that is never praised for what he does. In the end, the ox’s heart bursts under the yoke, the ass collapses crushed by the weight of the stones he is hauling, but no one notices. That’s how it’s been for me. I’ve never asked anything of the gods. The gods have never given me a thing. Do you understand me, Odysseus?’

  I did understand him, and he was right. Ajax had never lost his temper, had never abandoned the field and left his comrades to die overrun by the enemy. No one had ever implored or begged him to get back in the fight. Ajax was a mountain and mountains don’t lose control. Ajax had saved the ships because he was the cliff against which the waves of destruction could break. And cliffs don’t complain. They go on being cliffs and being mountains, day after day, year after year.

  But now the cliff, the mountain, had discovered he had a heart, had feelings: of friendship, of melancholy, of pain and resentment, like every mortal man.

  And despair.

  He wanted us to know. To recognize that there was a heart beating under his breastplate, behind the shield made of seven bull hides. How this had happened and why, I could not understand. Not then.

  He turned before leaving my tent: ‘Don’t betray me, Odysseus.’

  I HAD ACHILLES’ suit of armour transported to the centre of the assembly and displayed there. Agamemnon had decided that the arms would go to whoever most greatly deserved them and thus had asked each one of the members of the council to declare his opinion. The end result was a tie.

  He turned to me: ‘You have not voted, while Ajax has. Express your vote and the decision will be made.’

  I should have done it, should have spoken in favour of Ajax. I knew that he was the one who deserved the armour and I remembered his last words to me: ‘Do not betray me, Odysseus.’

  I did not do it.

  And it still weighs heavily on me . . . acute remorse.

  I betrayed Great Ajax, bulwark of the Achaians, when I could have saved him and saved myself by pronouncing that short, sweet-sounding name, as I had so many times in battle when I had needed him.

  I said instead: ‘We will repeat the voting and this time it will be secret. That way each of us will be freer.’

  Agamemnon agreed. ‘Each of you will have two knuckle bones, one black and one white. When your name is called by the herald, you will walk to the centre of the assembly and put your vote into Antilochus’ helmet. Black for Odysseus, white for Ajax. Then we will count the knuckle bones.’

  We began our voting. Agamemnon was first, and after him his herald Euribates called up the kings and princes one by one. As the voters approached the helmet placed on a little table at the centre of the assembly and deposited their knuckle bones inside, I asked myself why so many of them had voted for me when it was evident that Ajax had saved the naval camp, had faced up to Hector, had wrenched the body of Achilles from the Trojans and carried it out of the fray. But in the end I knew, even though I didn’t want to admit it to myself: the others may have aspired to owning that armour for any number of reasons, but by voting for me, none of them would feel the sting of defeat. What was more, they’d ensured that the weapons would not be going to the only man who could truly defeat all of them.

  In the end, I was declared the winner and everyone applauded. Bar one. Ajax left the assembly in a rage and soon disappeared from sight. The armour was taken back to my tent.

  I COULDN’T FALL ASLEEP that night, not even for brief moments. But even if I had been sleeping, I would have been shocked awake by Ajax’s shouting. ‘Come out, you traitor! Come and see the fate that will befall those who have denied me my rights! I’ll kill them all, here, right here in front of your tent and you last ofall!’

  In my drowsy confusion, I couldn’t understand at first what was happening, what Ajax was doing. I ran out, unarmed, and saw something I never could have imagined: Ajax had dashed to the ground the men who were guarding the cattle and sheep that served as our foodstock; they showed no signs of life. And there he was, as blood-spattered as a butcher, massacring the animals one after another, a torch held high in his other hand to illuminate his deed. The crazed animals were crowding together, bleating and lowing in terror, powerless to escape their fate. The stench was unbearable as we were immersed in a fog of madness and nightmare. Eurylochus ran up next to me, panting: ‘He thinks they’re the men who voted against him. He’s lost his mind! I’m going to sound the alarm.’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Don’t do anything. He’s only killing animals.’ The pen was only about fifty feet from my tent, and my tent was at the centre of the naval camp, equidistant from the Myrmidons on one end and Ajax’s men on the other. Although I had stopped Eurylochus, in no time a speechless crowd of hundreds and then thousands of men were thronging to catch sight of that wretched spectacle: princes and kings, warriors, servants, slaves and concubines. I saw Ajax’s slave and lover, Tecmessa, among them; she was sobbing. Everyone understood what was happening because the news had flown through the camp and many stood there numbly, tears flowing down their faces. Others had lit torches to get a better look. Last to arrive was Teucer, who looked at his brother dumbfounded, as if he could not believe his eyes.

  In the end, Ajax, hoarse from all his yelling, panting, exhausted and covered with blood from head to foot, slipped and lay there among the bowels, blood and excrement of sheep and cows.

  None of us moved. No one took a step or tried to approach him. Even Agamemnon, Menelaus and Diomedes watched wordlessly. Nestor and Idomeneus looked at one another and then at me, searching for an answer that no one was capable of giving. No one in all those years of war had ever seen such a thing, no one could bear to see the giant of one hundred battles weltering in the middle of that abomination. The red, flickering torchlight could only give us shredded glimpses of reality, all tinged with the saturated tones of violence. But when the cold, colourless light of the hour preceding the morning rendered the shapes and shades equal and inert, our anguish mounted until it became unbearable. I wanted to scream, to tear out my hair, to claw at my cheeks like the mourning women who follow funeral processions in countryside villages. Instead, I stood there motionless like a statue of salt.

  Then came the moment of extreme horror. Ajax awakened, struggled to his feet, looked around at the friends and comrades of so many battles and then at himself. As the moments passed, his mind started to eke a bit of light from that pale sky and that still, grey sea, and he came to his senses. Disgust slowly twisted his face as shame filled his eyes with burning tears and seeped into that great heart of his. Ajax gave a scream like the cry of one hundred men, a howl of horror and utter despair. He still gripped the sword that Hector had given him after their long duel and, stumbling over the mangled carcasses, he made his way straight towards me.

  I did not move. I deserved to be killed by him. He stopped a step away from me and, without saying a word, he stared into my eyes and raised his sword . . . I knew my time had come. Mine would be the death of a contemptible man.

  Instead my punishment was a hundred times more bitter. Ajax turned the sword at the last moment towards himself and he stuck it right under his diaphragm. Since deathly exhaustion had deprived him of the energy necessary to thrust it into his heart, he calmly placed the hilt end upright on the earth and threw himself on the point with all the weight of his huge body. Hector’s blade cleaved his great heart in two and came out of his back. The giant collapsed. And
the earth trembled under our feet.

  32

  THE TWO MEN GUARDING THE PEN who had been struck down by Ajax did not survive the attack. This made Ajax’s act even more repugnant in the eyes of those who had stood there watching and judging, without bothering to ask themselves why he had done such a thing. Agamemnon wanted him buried like carrion, but I fought to have him given the honours of a pyre: a hero’s funeral. My standing up for him reflected no particular merit on my part, but it did help to assuage my remorse.

  ‘He took his own life with his sword. What more could he do to redeem his shame? He had always fought, all these long years, like a lion. Isn’t that enough to earn him flames instead of worms?’

  ‘He thought he was killing us as he was slaughtering those poor animals.’

  ‘Well, he must have had a good reason, don’t you think? It was clear that he’d lost his mind. If he hadn’t gone mad he wouldn’t have been killing sheep, goats and cows, he would have been killing us, the kings of the Achaians, the comrades of a thousand battles. Because we betrayed him. But then a god made him come to his senses in time for him to experience unbearable shame and the worst pain of his whole life. Now he’s dead and we’ve lost our greatest combatant, one of the last of his kind.’

  I had my way. And thus we celebrated funeral rites for Ajax, son of Telamon, prince of Salamis, as we had celebrated those of Patroclus and Achilles. Only then did we realize how much we had loved him. We each recollected a certain moment spent together, each one of us added something of our own onto the pyre. It was I who ritually bent Ajax’s sword, the cruel blade that had belonged to his enemy. He succeeded where his enemy had not, in driving it into his heart.

  We chose a spot on the Rhoetean promontory to bury his ashes, then raised a high tumulus there so he would be forever remembered.

  We had never felt so alone as we did after his death, we had never felt so sad. But we knew we had to react and regain control of the situation. Our army had to believe that we were still certain of victory. Ajax had descended from Zeus himself, and we needed to replace him with another warrior of his same stock. A fighter as strong and passionate as he had been.

  ‘The son of Achilles!’

  ‘But he’s only a boy,’ said Agamemnon.

  ‘He’s seventeen years old,’ I replied. ‘He’s perfect. He has no children, no wife and no homeland. He grew up on an island far away from the land of his ancestors, whom he has never seen. He never met his grandfather Peleus; he only saw his father once when he was too young to remember. All he knows about Achilles is what he has heard, and his only goal is to surpass him in fame. He has been raised for one single thing: combat. He has no loved ones, no roots, no feeling or memories to share with another. He’s an animal of war.’

  ‘How do you know all these things?’

  ‘When we left Aulis to cross the sea, Achilles and I stopped at Scyros to take on food and water, but mostly because he wanted to see his son. It was I who gave King Lycomedes instructions on how he was to be educated. We put him in the charge of two of Achilles’ own Lapiths to be trained in the art of war. I suppose I foresaw that this day might come.’

  ‘If that is so, leave immediately to fetch him and be back as soon as you can.’

  ‘I will, wanax. I’ll leave tomorrow.’

  I fitted out my ship, chose my most trusted men, including Eurylochus and Elpenor, and set sail at dawn. In all those years, I had only taken my ship out for brief stretches, usually along the Thracian coast to buy wine for the army. The sea greeted me like an old friend who hadn’t shown his face in a long time. My ship ploughed the waves like it had on its maiden voyage. There was a light breeze from the north that we had to compensate for at times with the helm and at times with the oars. The smell and taste of the salty air made me remember home. Time after time, I realized that, without meaning to, I was calculating how many days it would take me, sailing at that speed, to reach Ithaca.

  Scyros was in the middle of the sea, at an equal distance from Troy and Euboea.

  It took me only two days to get there and I easily guided my ship into the main port. I had myself announced, and King Lycomedes greeted me with all due honours. The fame of our interminable assault had reached lands far and wide, been distorted, expanded, broken into a thousand different stories that the minstrels had seized upon and happily related, travelling from one palace to the next, one village to another. The king had a huge banquet prepared, inviting the notables of his island and the ones nearby. I was asked many questions, which I answered in part and avoided in part. Finally, after all the guests had gone home and the servants had begun to clear the tables, the king drew close and said: ‘What is the reason behind such an unexpected visit?’

  ‘Achilles is dead. I’ve come to get the boy.’

  ‘I knew that,’ said the king, without adding anything else.

  ‘Does he know?’

  Lycomedes nodded. ‘He wants to avenge him, and to surpass the fame and valour of his father.’

  ‘When can I see him?’

  ‘Better tomorrow. He’ll be with his concubines now. When I heard you’d arrived, I was hoping you’d come to take him away. He has become impossible to live with. It’s like having a wild animal roaming your home. If he weren’t my daughter’s son and if I hadn’t been prevented from doing so by the bonds of blood, I would have got rid of him long ago. He’s indomitable, irascible, violent. I can barely manage to hold him back.’

  ‘Sleep easy, wanax, tomorrow I’m taking him away with me.’

  I saw the boy at dawn. He had dived into the sea and was swimming like a dolphin, slapping his chest on the strong surf that the night wind was still heaving against the cliffs guarding the port. Then he returned to the shore and began to run down the beach, faster and faster, until I could barely distinguish the movement of his feet, so swift were they. He looked as if he were racing against an invisible adversary.

  His father.

  I waited until he stopped. I could feel the energy that he gave off, as if I were standing before a big raging fire. His shoulder-length hair was the colour of flames while his eyes were the colour of ice. His arms were powerful, much more massive than on any boy of his age. But his hands, strangely enough, were long and tapered, with big blue veins showing under the thin skin.

  ‘I’m Odysseus, king of Ithaca.’

  ‘A man who uses his tongue rather than his sword, from what I hear tell.’

  I drew my sharp bronze blade and pointed it at his throat before he could blink an eye. When he pulled back I kept up the pressure until it drew blood.

  ‘Next time I’ll cut the tendon in your neck so you’ll keep your head down for the rest of your life, in front of men who are worth much more than you, and in front of men who are worth much less as well. I’m the man your father respected most in the whole army. He begat you but I’m the person who made you what you are. It was I who established how you were to be educated, trained and punished whenever it was necessary and even when it was not. Where are your instructors?’

  ‘Both of them wanted to test what I’d learned from them. They’re both dead.’

  I didn’t let the slightest emotion show on my face at hearing that news. I didn’t so much as blink. I said: ‘Prepare your things, we’ll set sail in an hour.’

  WE EXCHANGED very few words during the whole voyage. He never asked me anything about his father, showed no desire to visit his tomb or to sacrifice to his shade. When we arrived within sight of our destination and the city appeared on the hill, he pointed at it. ‘Is that Troy?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And in ten years, with one thousand ships and fifty thousand warriors, you haven’t succeeded in conquering it?’

  ‘No. As you can see. That’s why I came to get you. You’ll have your father’s chariot and his horses, you’ll wear the armour that your father lent to Patroclus and that he himself stripped from Hector after he’d killed him.’

  ‘He had another set,’ replied t
he boy. ‘The one he was wearing when they killed him. Where is it?’

  I could never have imagined that he would know so much.

  ‘In my tent.’ And when I answered I looked him straight in the eye. He didn’t say anything more.

  The same evening that we arrived he was presented to the assembled army wearing his father’s first suit of armour, on a podium illuminated by eight large braziers and by tens of lit torches. The warriors honoured him by shouting out his name seven times and pounding their spears against their shields twenty times, creating a deafening din.

  When he passed in front of me I said: ‘Tomorrow you’ll be in the front line at the head of your Myrmidons.’

  HE FOUGHT the whole day, until nightfall, on the chariot driven by his father’s charioteer, Automedon, or on foot. He never rested, took no food or drink. His appearance served, as we had hoped, to strike terror into Trojan hearts. They thought it was Achilles himself they faced, brought back to life, and they knew they could not withstand his assault. Aeneas himself risked losing his life in a clash with him.

  The boy pushed all the way to the perfidious Skaian Gate and he nearly succeeded in forcing open the doors, which had been drawn shut but not yet bolted. The enthusiasm of our army was immeasurable. But the Trojans reacted by multiplying their defences and attacking less frequently on open ground. When they did attack, they immediately honed in on Pyrrhus’ position and kept him in the sights of one hundred archers, forcing him to adopt a defensive strategy.

  We were at a stand-off once again. The rumour started to circulate that Troy would never fall because the gods did not want the war to ever finish.