Vengeance at Aulis (The Trojan Murders Book 2)

by Peter Tonkin

  iv

  I had talked with Agamemnon that afternoon with a very uncertain outcome and I was hesitating in the outer area, summoning up the courage to do so once again, when Princess Iphigenia spotted me. ‘Rhapsode!’ she said, approaching with a smile. ‘Shouldn’t you be in the megaron either at you seat for the feast or on your stool for the song, but in any case taking this opportunity for a final rehearsal?’

  ‘I should, Princess,’ I croaked. ‘But Oikonomos sent me through to inform your parents that the food is ready.’

  ‘And you came! You are an unusual rhapsode! Sophos would never have dreamed of demeaning himself in such a manner!’

  ‘Have I done wrong, Princess?’ I asked, aghast.

  Her chuckle in answer was deep and throaty. ‘I hesitate to speak ill of the dead, but if Sophos had been commanded to carry your message from Oikonomos to my parents, the feast would have been ashes long before we were informed that it was ready!’

  ‘Oh…’ I looked around. The High King was deep in conversation with Leonteus of Argissa and Queen Clytemnestra was talking to Menelaus. She was turned towards me and the face I could see over the King of Sparta’s shoulder was the second most lovely in the place; the third loveliest below Olympus, perhaps, after those of her daughter and her sister. ‘Come,’ said Iphigenia imperiously and set off towards her father her gilded ringlets bouncing. By the grace of the gods, Leonteus backed away just before the Princess and I arrived. He was replaced by Odysseus and Diomedes. This fact gave me further courage; of course, the princess’s presence would be recognised no matter who was talking with her father. But now my presence would be registered as well. I need not have worried, of course. ‘Excuse me, majesties,’ said Iphigenia courteously but irresistibly. ‘Oikonomos has requested that King Odysseus’ rhapsode inform the High King my father that the feast is ready when he and my mother the Queen would care to lead the guests through.’

  Once again I felt the weight of the High King’s gaze resting on me. ‘Is this so?’ he demanded, as though questioning the truthfulness of the Princess’ pronouncements was a commonplace matter.

  ‘It is, Spudeos Basileus,’ I said quietly. ‘The messenger Oikonomos first sent to inform you fell into the fire and so I came in his place.’

  ‘Are we to eat roasted slave at this feast as well?’ demanded a voice that contrived to be both soft and icy. ‘It certainly smells as though we are!’

  ‘Oh Mother!’ sighed Iphigenia. ‘The poor man must have been hurt quite badly. We should be thanking the rhapsode here for stepping into the breach so swiftly and willingly.’

  Those fathomless brown eyes rested on me for a moment. ‘You seem to have made a friend of my daughter, rhapsode,’ she said. ‘She has been singing the praises of your wedding-song all afternoon. I suggest you enjoy the honour as speedily as you can, however - you will lose her to another so swiftly.’

  Agamemnon grunted at the words. ‘Are you ready, my dear?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, My Lord,’ she answered. ‘King Diomedes, would you please escort the Princess Iphigenia to the table?’

  ‘Of course, Majesty. I would be honoured.’

  I stepped back as Diomedes stepped forward. It’s not you either, I thought, not least because, as he had already mentioned, Diomedes was recently married. Then I waited while all the royal guests went through, were greeted by Oikonomos and his assistants and guided to their allotted places. I was content to bring up the rear because, although I had not rehearsed my song as the princess suggested, I had already been in the megaron and I knew my place.

  ***

  The evening passed pleasantly enough. The mysterious section of kid I was served turned out to be well-cooked and surprisingly tasty; a considerable step up from the shattered shank. My song passed uninterrupted even though King Nestor and several other Argonauts of that elder generation had actually known Orpheus. Neither of Iphigenia’s parents questioned the suitability of my song, and although there was no jewelled dagger this time, the smile that the Princess flashed in my direction was worth more to me than Achilles’ golden armour, let alone a gaudy dagger. Precious also was Odysseus’ ‘Well done lad!’ and Diomedes’ hand on my shoulder as we finally left Agamemnon’s tent and began to make our way towards the kings’ accommodation and Thalassa. As the murmur of conversation fell away behind us, the night sounds closed down in its place. Gulls called sleepily. Cicadas chirruped despite the rapidly cooling air. Owls swooped and called, ghostly in the pallid starlight.

  King Nestor joined us just as one of the owls swooped inquisitively above our heads. The ancient king gestured to the pale outline of a bird hanging silently low above us. ‘That’s Athena keeping a close eye on us,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Artemis I’m worried about, Majesty,’ I replied. The moment I spoke, a low grunting noise came from beyond the rubbish heaps up the hill on our right. ‘That’ll be Artemis now,’ said Odysseus. He slapped his scarred thigh, ‘Let’s hope it’s a smaller relation to the boar that gave me this, eh?’

  ‘Ha!’ scoffed the old man. ‘If you’re talking about Artemis and boars, you should have seen the Calydonian Boar she sent to revenge herself on King Oeneus of Calydon when he failed to do her sufficient honour at a sacrifice! Monstrous it was, all black bristles and red, burning eyes, and as for its tusks! You ask Machaon or Podialirius if you don’t believe me, their father King Asclepius was there with the rest of us and that pretty little creature Atalanta who drew first blood even though she was a woman!’

  ‘Or,’ Odysseus reminded him gently, ‘You could ask me. My father King Laertes was also there and he told me all about it at great length on many occasions!’

  ‘It came at you like an army ready for battle,’ Nestor continued undaunted. ‘Hairs bristling like spears, breast just one impenetrable black shield, eyes like hot coals, mouth spitting fire and burning drool. Tusks as sharp as swords and the length of an elephant’s…’

  Nestor was still talking when our little group broke up. He and Diomedes led their servants towards their tents and at last only Odysseus, Elpenor and I were left, strolling pensively onwards towards Odysseus’ tent. ‘It’s late,’ said the king as we approached. ‘And the moon isn’t giving any light tonight. Why don’t you bed down here. There’s plenty of room. I’ll come aboard Thalassa with you in the morning and you can show me what you discovered while I was in Ithaka. There’s space for you too, Elpenor. The more of us bedded down there, the safer I’ll feel – just in case that boar we heard earlier really is as big as the monster Artemis sent to Calydon!’

  He was joking of course, but in the way that such things sometimes happen, Artemis must have been listening to him, or, if not the Goddess herself than that dangerous trickster Hermes. We had bedded down and, speaking for myself at least, fallen instantly into a deep sleep. It seemed to me therefore that I no sooner closed my eyes than Odysseus was shaking my shoulder, his frowning face gilded by the light of a lamp-flame. ‘Something’s happened,’ he said. ‘They’re asking for me to come at once. I thought I’d bring you along as usual.’

  I sat up immediately. Elpenor was already shrugging on his tunic and I reached for mine at once. It didn’t occur to me to ask what the matter was or who had called for Odysseus until we were walking purposefully up the hill with the rose-fingered promise of dawn lightening the sky above the ship-crowded bay behind us. We were being guided by the man who had summoned Odysseus and I recognised him as the frog-faced servant Oikonomos had sent to invite Achilles to the feast. I frowned, trying to work out what message the servant could have brought that could summon Odysseus from his bed like this. And then with a chill of revelation I began to suspect. But the truth is that I did not suspect the half of what we were just about to find.

  The body was lying face down in the clear area between the topmost tents and the rubbish piles. The head and shoulders were on the downslope, the soles of the footwear pointing up at the Groves of Artemis above. The first thing I noticed were the ha
nds. Their fingers were clawed into the dry brown grass as though whoever this was had been trying to pull itself along when he died. And, sure enough, there was a short trail of blood blackening the ground between the dead knees, stretching back from beneath the body almost as far as the ankles. It seemed clear that the dead man had not been touched. To a certain extent there was little need to interfere with him because the head was turned sideways to present a familiar profile. Even though the face was made strange at first glance by the contortion of the dead features, it was easy enough to recognise.

  ‘Oikonomos,’ I said. ‘Agamemnon’s not going to like this. First his rhapsode and then his chief steward.

  ‘But what in the name of the gods has happened to him?’ wondered Elpenor.

  ‘We’ll need to turn him over to be certain, but I have a pretty good idea,’ said Odysseus grimly.

  Elpenor, the frog-faced servant and I took hold of the corpse and rolled him over. So the first pink light of dawn revealed the great slashes that opened his thighs from knee to groin down as deep as the bone. And the sideways rent that had torn his belly so that his guts were on the point of cascading out to join the great wave of blood he left smeared across the grass. ‘What did this?’ wondered Elpenor, shaken.

  Perhaps it was a coincidence, but when he stooped to lower his lamp for a closer look, Odysseus put his left hand on the scar running up his own thigh as he answered his oarsman’s question. ‘It was a boar,’ he said.

  v

  Agamemnon sat in the High King’s seat he had occupied at last night’s feast but the table that had fronted him was gone. He was wrapped in a cloak, having been called from his bed but he still contrived to look regal. Regal and in some state which existed beyond outrage and naked fury; a state surely bordering madness for which no word had yet been invented. Odysseus and I stood before him. Elpenor was standing guard over the body, making sure it remained undisturbed until we returned for a closer examination. Palamedes had been summoned. There were messengers also speeding towards Aulis and the Temple of Artemis. Nestor appeared, though I didn’t realise he had been invited. So did Diomedes, who came to stand beside Odysseus. Queen Clytemnestra arrived, with a couple of personal servants still fussing over the ebony perfection of her hair. But to be fair, she could have exchanged her hairstyle with Medusa the Gorgon and she would still have been heart-stoppingly lovely. She was also icily remote, like the peak of the highest northern mountain in midwinter. Hardly surprising under the circumstances, I thought. Her gaze swept across us and I realised what had put Medusa into my mind. It was a wonder we did not all turn to stone.

  ‘First Sophos,’ grated the High King, ‘and now Oikonomos! What is going on here?’

  ‘First,’ said Odysseus quietly, ‘the sacred deer and the young priestess. Then Sophos. And now Oikonomos. We might also observe the deaths of nameless man in the grip of a bear and his companion called the Rat poisoned by a viper.’

  ‘And are you tying all these various deaths together?’ enquired Clytemnestra.

  ‘I have no idea if they should be tied together, Majesty, but I suggest we should not be too quick to separate them.’

  ‘Well,’ snapped Agamemnon, ‘now you’re back – without your Cephallenian fleet I notice – you can look into the more recent outrages. Those which involved my servants. Bears and rats need hardly concern us. Ah, here is Palamedes. He can continue his enquiry into who might have killed the so-called sacred stag and that stupid girl who seems to have thrown herself in front of it just at the worst possible moment!’

  ‘It may be that Palamedes and I will have to work together,’ warned Odysseus. And the tone of his voice made it clear that this was a genuine warning. Palamedes was brilliant but arrogant. The bad blood that had lain between him and Odysseus ever since Palamedes had revealed Odysseus’ attempt to feign madness by throwing the infant Telemachus onto the ground immediately in front of his father’s plough-blade would never be settled until one or the other of them was dead. It was only through the grace of the gods that the little prince had survived the brutal test of his father’s sanity. And, personal animus aside, I could see Odysseus’ point – Agamemnon still did not want the man guilty of that first outrage unmasked because there was little doubt that the truth would destroy the increasingly strained accord that was holding the entire army together. On the other hand, he most certainly wanted the men who had killed Sophos and the animal that had all-but gutted Oikonomos caught and given the most agonisingly appropriate punishment possible.

  It was at this point that the delegation from Aulis arrived. As chance would have it, Father led the envoys. His gaze swept over me with a smile the faintest ghost of a wink. ‘Well, Basileus,’ he said to Agamemnon, never one to give more respect than he felt he owed and markedly parsimonious in the matter of royal titles. ‘What can the good people of Aulis do for you on this occasion? More lambs and kids? A ram perhaps or a good big billygoat?’

  ‘I have called you here,’ snarled the High King, ‘about a boar!’

  ‘Ah. Boars could be a problem, Majesty. They are like bears and certain stags: sacred to Artemis, and…’

  ‘I don’t want to cook one!’ roared the High King. ‘I want to know whether your town has ever been troubled by bears and boars coming down out of the forest…’

  ‘Out of the Groves of the Goddess,’ said Father, utterly unmoved by Agamemnon’s anger. ‘No, I can’t say that we have, Majesty. But then we in Aulis live under the protection of the Goddess and remain in consequence, safe from her creatures. On the other hand I have to observe that there has never been so much temptation piled all over the upper slopes to entice them out. I know a bear is said to have attacked one of your soldiers a few days ago. Are you telling me that a boar has done some damage now?’

  ‘It has killed my Chief Steward Oikonomos! Gutted him like a fish!’

  Father took a dramatic step back, his hands flung up in horror. ‘I am shocked, Majesty! Aghast! We have never had anything like that happen; certainly not in my memory! I didn’t even know there were any wild boars left up there these days. Have you discussed the matter with the High Priestess?’

  ‘No!’ came a voice that was just as icy as Queen Clytemnestra’s. ‘But believe you me, he’s just about to!’ High Priestess Karpathia swept into the tent, with Ikaros immediately behind her.

  ***

  ‘Well?’ snapped Agamemnon, turning his fury upon Karpathia, ‘are there wild boars up there?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ the High Priestess snapped back. ‘Ikaros? You know the Groves of the Goddess better than anyone. Have you seen any wild boars up there?’

  ‘I have seen pigs and piglets and assume there must be boars as well. But I cannot be certain, Basilissa,’ answered the old huntsman. ‘I had assumed that there were no bears left up there either but I was obviously mistaken in that belief.’

  I opened my mouth to join the discussion but Diomedes spoke over me as Odysseus was frowning pensively apparently lost in thought. ‘We heard a pig rooting through the piles of waste as we walked back to our tents after the feast,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t swear whether the animal was a sow or a boar, but I’m certain it was there.’

  ‘Bears, boars, vipers, sacred stags… What sort of a menagerie do you keep up in those woods?’ wondered Clytemnestra. The fact that the question was asked quietly did not rob it of its chilling edge.

  Karpathia’s attention moved from the High King to the Queen. It was as though the Myrmidons, having considered one weak spot in the Trojan walls, had now turned their hostile attention to another. ‘We keep everything that is sacred to the Goddess,’ she answered, equally quietly. ‘Artemis choses to manifest herself in many forms and put her blessings on others. All of them are sacred.’

  ‘I think the Goddess should be made aware,’ Palamedes very clearly spoke for Agamemnon who was apparently too angry to speak for himself, ‘that if she or any of her pets choose to manifest themselves outside her sacred groves, then t
hey only have themselves to blame if we kill them either for protection, sport or food!’

  I had never seen an expression quite like the smile with which Karpathia reacted to this. It was not even remotely attractive or humorous. In the depths behind it lurked an outrage that matched even Agamemnon’s. ‘The Oracle and I will put your argument to the Goddess as soon as I return to the temple,’ she said. ‘You will hear from one of us in due course.’

  ‘And you’d better hope,’ said Ikaros who challenged even Father in his unwillingness to bow before royalty, ‘that when you do hear, it’s from the Oracle or the High Priestess. You really don’t want to hear directly from the Goddess herself any more than you already have!’ The silence that followed this pronouncement was just long enough to establish the stillness of the windless morning outside.

  ‘I’ve had more than enough of the Goddess’ threats!’ snapped Agamemnon. ‘Let’s get on here! First and most importantly I want to know all about how Sophos and Oikonomos met their ends! King Odysseus, would you kindly give these matters your closest attention at once.’

  Odysseus and Diomedes left Agamemnon’s accommodation side by side. I followed them. Nestor stayed with Palamedes to advise the High King. As we came out into the bright, still morning, Kalkhas the Soothsayer and Aias both hurried past, ready to join the increasingly acrimonious discussion in the tent. ‘So,’ said Odysseus, ‘I’d be grateful if you would tell me the details you have discovered about Sophos’ murder in a while. In the meantime, logic dictates that we should begin with the dead man who has been most recently killed. Being gored to death by a boar appears at first sight simply to be a random accident. It is only the involvement of the Goddess that seems to make this all part of a pattern. And of course the problem is that I do not actually believe that the Goddess is really involved at all.’