Of course, he’d heard the rumors that Odysseus still lived, alone among all his men, with a woman on a small isle. But he didn’t believe it. If his father had lived, he would have come home to him. No father would turn his back on his only son—leaving him to be ruled by women and wolves.
A strong wind gusted behind him, stinking of goat dung, making his cloak stick to his back. With an irritated grunt, he shook it off, staring at the finely woven edges of the material as he did so. He had to admit his mother and her workshop women did fine work. If he had the power and respect due him, he would probably be proud his mother excelled in the female arts. If only she hadn’t made the whole of Ithaca dependent on her little economy.
Whenever he complained about the lack of honor, she’d say, “My ‘little economy’ is keeping our people from starving. Our sheepherders provide our wool, keeping their families fed; our craftsmen build and repair our busy looms; our blacksmiths make the loom weights; our woodworkers the spools and spindles. Our traders exchange our cloth for food we could not otherwise afford. How else do you suppose Ithaca would’ve survived all these years?”
He never knew what to say to that.
His grandfather, old Laertes had always talked a big game about teaching him the manly arts when he was little, but he’d changed over time. He lost the sparkle in his eyes and his back bowed under the angry stares of the people as they turned on his house during the hard years. Laertes hid in his orchards. And he never called for Telemachus. Never showed him how to work the earth or hunt for game.
Old Mentor—the retired warrior his father had assigned to keep an eye on his family—was no better. He took little interest in Telemachus, often insulting him for taking after his mother in looks and build rather than his strong and muscular father. Always, just under the surface, was the suspicion that maybe he wasn’t Odysseus’s son at all, which galled.
One more insult to add to the endless list. Telemachus had not complained when Mentor also became scarce at the palace.
Before his house filled with the children of the lost men, he thought nothing of the hours he spent in the women’s quarters. With a grunt, he remembered how one day, seeking old comforts, he’d picked up the distaff. Hot shame still roiled in his stomach at the memory of how the boys, the new playmates who’d begun to mysteriously fill his house during that period, had howled and laughed at him for doing women’s work.
But how could he have known wielding women’s tools was a shameful thing without a father or grandfather to tell him? His mother should’ve seen the danger, should’ve kept him from doing women’s work, even if it did keep him busy and out from underfoot when he was younger. It was her fault for not insisting, for not making Laertes or Mentor show him the things his father would’ve—the spear, the hunt, boxing, wrestling.
By the time all his “guest-friend” boys of the kingdom began taking root in his own palace, it had been too late to begin to learn the manly arts. They’d always known more about being boys—how to insult, race, box and fish and climb and hunt; how to form alliances and dominate others—than he could’ve ever learned sitting at the feet of women.
And what he learned, he did so too late—that only brawn mattered, that only the strongest and fastest boys became admired leaders. The weak and the slow became the most reviled.
Telemachus’s name and bloodline made no difference to the boys who could out-throw, outrun and outwrestle him. If only his father—or his grandfather—had been around to train and prepare him. They would’ve shown him how to claim his rightful dominance. If he’d had that, he’d be ruling his house and kingdom without question.
Instead, bastards like Antinous and Eurymachus ruled the other suitors over him, the true royal son of Odysseus!
The “suitors” should have been obeying his every word, taking orders under his command. He’d heard enough descriptions of his father to know he was broad and not tall—strong but not the strongest. So how had he done it, then? How had he led men who were bigger and stronger?
Anytime he tried to assert his rightful dominance, all he got back was laughter and jeering.
Well, he would change that. Somehow, he would find a way to make them all kneel at his feet, as they were born to do.
Telemachus rolled his shoulders and ran fingers through his curls as he climbed the third hill past the wild olive trees to Mentes’s house. Maybe he shouldn’t have come.
But how could he not?
Mentes was one of the few older men left in town during his father’s long absence. Although he’d been a fine warrior who’d served his father well, he hadn’t joined Odysseus’s campaign to Troy due to a freak accident on the dock as he prepared the war boats. A trunk full of weapons slipped from its rope moorings, crashing down on his right leg. Legend was that you could hear the crack of bone all the way to the twelfth and last boat in the fleet.
His father had Mentes sent to the palace to have the royal healers treat him as Odysseus sailed away to Troy. Because of the severity of the break—at the thigh—everyone thought the formerly strong young warrior would die. But Mentes survived, though with a strangely bowed, deformed leg that kept him from ever serving as a warrior again.
After recovering under the care of his mother’s best healers, Mentes had made himself scarce. Until, Telemachus thought wryly, that fateful day in his thirteenth year—or maybe it was the fourteenth, he couldn’t quite remember—when he suddenly appeared in his hall, sharing a table with him and his mother.
How sweetly Mentes had smiled at Telemachus throughout the night. How Telemachus had flushed with warmth at the attention from the handsome older man.
Telemachus always stood up straighter and talked tougher whenever the muscled, broad-shouldered former warrior appeared in his home—which had suddenly increased in frequency. He felt special when Mentes shared his battle stories and promised to show him how to hunt boar in the hills.
Telemachus had fallen fast and hard for the man, especially when his caresses grew more intimate and pleasurable.
Finally! A man in his life who loved him and guided him and schooled him in the ways of men. Some of the other boys grew jealous. Their choices for finding a mentor of such power and dignity were slim, after all (though Telemachus preferred not to dwell on why that was so, since it had been his father’s responsibility to bring home those very men).
And Mentes had, as promised, taken him hunting and worked with him on javelin throwing and wielding the bow and arrow. His confidence grew in tandem with his physical skills. But then everything changed.
“Welcome young master,” said Mentes’s gardner, who was weeding the herb garden in the courtyard. “Shall I announce you?” He made to get up off his knees.
“No, no need,” Telemachus said quickly. “I can see myself in.”
Mentes, on the other side of the courtyard, heard their exchange. “Telemachus,” he called out. “Welcome. Come, join me for some morning wine and bread.”
One of his servants—he hadn’t even seen the girl come up—took his cloak from his shoulders. Mentes had gotten up from his bench and was limping toward him.
“No, no, don’t get up,” Telemachus said stupidly because, well, he already had.
“Welcome, welcome,” Mentes said with great warmth, which made Telemachus’s throat tighten.
Stay detached.
Still, when Mentes opened his arms to him, Telemachus instinctively nestled into the older man’s bear-like embrace.
It was all he could do to not press his nose into the man’s thick neck and breathe in the familiar scent of his warm skin.
Too quickly, Mentes pulled him away, holding him by his shoulders. “What brings you out here?” he asked, leading him to the bench near the small wooden table. A servant had already poured him some well-watered wine and had put out a small plate of olives and warm bread.
Suddenly, Telemachus didn’t know why he had come. He knew only that he’d missed Mentes. That he wanted—no, needed—to be in hi
s company.
“I’m angry,” he blurted. “And lonely.” His face flushed and he quickly took a sip of wine. He hadn’t meant to say the latter part.
“And horny too, no doubt,” the older man said with a chuckle.
“Well, now that you mention it...” he said playfully, hoping. He tried to hide just how much he was hoping.
Mentes sighed. “Come on, boy. We’ve been through this.”
Telemachus gulped more wine. “Don’t call me boy.”
“Right,” Mentes said, laughing. “That’s at the crux of this whole issue, isn’t it?”
But Telemachus wasn’t laughing.
“Telemachus, we’ve been through this so many times,” he said. “You are too old for this. It’s time to find a boy or girl of your own. You will see how it changes everything.”
“I don’t want anyone else,’” he said through gritted teeth.
“You should marry a sweet girl. Until you take someone as your own, you will always be seen as a boy. You will always feel like a boy.”
“I don’t want anyone but you,” Telemachus repeated miserably. He put a hand on his old lover’s bent and twisted leg. He leaned toward him. When Mentes didn’t turn his head, he pressed his mouth against his. Again, he didn’t pull away. But neither did he kiss him back.
Telemachus drew back. Mentes reached out a thumb and brushed it around the younger man’s mouth. “See, it’s this,” he said, running his nail over the nubs of his growing beard.
Why hadn’t he shaved? He wanted to kick himself for forgetting to do so.
“You are a man now. And I am not attracted to men.” He patted the bristles still growing in uneven patches on Telemachus’s cheeks. “I let this go on for too long because you always looked younger than your age. And I knew you needed me. But that has changed. I should’ve let you go long before now. And for that, I am sorry.”
Telemachus’s eyes burned and he took another sip of wine.
“Come on now. You are a man of twenty!” Mentes reminded him. “Take a younger lover. Marry a sweet girl and start having children. You cannot be a man until you begin to act like one. Until you take action, you will continue to feel like a child.”
Telemachus had heard all this before, of course. But no matter how many times Mentes tried to extricate himself, he still couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t turn off his emotions, nor his desires, just because his beard had finally come in!
“Mentes, please,” Telemachus muttered and he hated himself for his weakness. He would give up everything for this man, to spend one more night wrapped in his broad arms. Mentes, by all rights, should’ve hated him too for this weakness. The fact that he didn’t only made it worse.
“Dear boy—”
“Don’t call me b—”
“Excuse me, my dear young man,” Mentes corrected, his deep, gravelly voice filled with compassion. “Our time together is over, but I can continue to guide you. Here’s what you must do: take action. Your passivity is what the other men disdain.”
Telemachus’s throat grew even tighter. How he hated that word. Passivity. But how could he take action when no one listened to him, let alone respected him? More and more, he wished he could return to his smooth-cheeked days when all that mattered was whether his javelin throw had gone farther than it had the day before.
“I don’t know what to do,” Telemachus said.
Mentes sighed. “Of course you do. You just haven’t done it yet. Demand retribution from those who are abusing your house. Make them leave.”
“You know they won’t listen to me.”
“They will listen if you have a force of arms behind you,” Mentes said. “So get one. Your father helped all the neighboring kingdoms take Troy. Use that to make alliances.”
Telemachus stared at his fingers, willing himself not to chew on an enticing bit of skin ridging his thumb.
“Take a ship to sandy Pylos,” Mentes continued. “King Nestor was a friend of your father’s. Make your appeal. Or just go straight to your grandfather in Sparta. It’s long past time for you to strengthen that family connection. If you want to be king, you must convince your grandfather to marry off your mother to someone else and give you a squadron of Spartan warriors to enforce your rule.”
Telemachus abruptly rose and began to pace.
Seeing that Telemachus was about to spew another excuse, the older man plowed on. “And if that doesn’t work, go to Menelaus. He owes your father. Convince him to send you some of his forces to back up your claim and rid your home of the lazy suitors.”
“Why would Menelaus help me?” Telemachus asked, stopping to take another gulp of wine.
“By the gods! Because your father helped him win the goddam war,” Mentes thundered. “Without Odysseus, he would not be the most powerful High King of the land.”
“But if I did that, I’d be beholden to him,” Telemachus said, aware that his voice had taken on a whiny tone, but unable to stop.
Mentes rubbed a rough, callused hand over his face. “Everyone is beholden to Menelaus now, as he is High King of all the Achaeans. You just need to make that work in your favor.”
Slowly, Telemachus nodded his head. Of course, they’d had this conversation before, but the idea of actually following through had seemed as remote as a dream. But Mentes’s rejection had hardened something in him. And although he would never admit it, a part of him imagined winning him back by the sheer brilliance of his countenance at the head of a powerful and deadly force of arms.
Mentes must have sensed a shift for he jumped on the opening. “I will ready a ship for you, outfit with a crew loyal to your House,” he said quickly. “Gather stores, and guest gifts. But don’t tell anyone what you are up to, especially your mother.”
Telemachus opened his mouth to protest—everything was moving too fast—when a movement caught his eye. A sleepy-eyed youth shuffled into the courtyard. His hair was long and tousled, his cheeks smooth, and his face and form as slim and graceful as a year-old buck. He wore only a loincloth and when he emerged out of the shadows, his skin glowed like sunlit honey. When the youth grinned at Mentes and Mentes beamed back Telemachus felt it like a physical blow to the chest.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” the youth called out. “I would’ve joined you—.” He stopped, spotting Telemachus.
Telemachus stared back coldly. So, this was his new boy.
“Good morning, my love,” Mentes boomed.
Telemachus blinked, the hot searing sensation pushing deeper. Here was final proof: he’d been replaced. He was no longer wanted.
If this is what it feels like to be a man, perhaps I’m better off running back to my mother’s house, Telemachus thought sourly.
But it was too late for that, wasn’t it? His beard was in and he’d long since passed the age where he could pretend to be a boy. His outside form no longer matched how young he felt on the inside. And that, according to Mentes, changed everything.
Telemachus took one last loud gulp of his wine and placed the earthenware cup carefully on the wooden table as if it were made of precious glass. Without looking at the youth again, he cleared his throat and turned to Mentes. “Thank you. When do you think your crew would be ready to set sail?”
“By this afternoon,” Mentes said. “So you’re going to do it?”
“Yes. I will meet your crew at the docks.”
He left Mentes’s house with as much straight-backed dignity as he could muster.
* * *
PENELOPE
On the western side of the craggy mountain, the small train of women climbed a high path that overlooked the wine-dark sea. Soon they would be within sight of the Great Mother’s sacred cave. Ithaca’s rocks glinted in the brilliant sunshine like the jagged black teeth of an open-mouthed monster. Waves crashed and boomed against crags below them as if reminding them of what was at stake.
At the holy site, they poured libations of milk and honey before the cavern’s entrance. A massive beast’s thighbone
protruded over the opening, the calcified rock reminding Penelope that the Goddess had ruled during the age of giants too. Passing under the massive bone into the cave was akin to entering the Goddess. There was no guarantee that she would be allowed to return. And so the purification process began.
The queen’s women collected wood and started a fire with the sacred embers brought from the palace’s shrine. Penelope poured blessed wine over the flames for the Ancient Deathless One. The sacrificial wine, heavy and sweet with an anodyne from Egypt—sent from her own cousin Helen—was the perfect bringer-of-dreams for a night spent in congress with the Mother.
Danae and the two girls drank it too, though their mixtures were not as strong. The Goddess might choose to speak with them as well but they also needed to stay firmly in this world should the queen need them.
When night spread her cloak of darkness fully over the land, they stood before the roaring, crackling fire. Danae sponged the queen’s naked body with fresh water warmed near the fire as Penelope allowed the sacred wine to expand her awareness. One moment she was brushing her fingertips across the stars, the next she was in Danae’s warm palm next to the glass vial of amber body oil.
Her ladies chanted songs of praise. Penelope’s body resumed its earthly size and she became exquisitely aware of Danae’s hands, massaging the fragrant oil into her scalp, then her neck and shoulders. A deep warmth spread in her belly as images and sensations, long buried, bubbled to the surface—of the feel of her husband’s large hand sliding between her legs; of his low growl of lust the first time he’d drawn the raw, wet animal release from deep inside her; of the way she would sink her teeth into the spot where his jawline met his throat to distract him from his endless storytelling and put his mouth on her instead.
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