King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

by Glyn Iliffe

  After a while he found what he was searching for: the lip of a rock shelf overlooking the fertile plains of Sparta and the road through the mountains. He made his way carefully and slowly up the loose, scree-covered slopes until, shortly, he was standing in the centre of a shallow bowl that was an ideal place for a camp. It had an overhanging crest of rock to provide shelter from wind and rain, whilst its natural concavity would keep him out of sight from anyone below. And if he needed to make a defence, the only approaches were up steep gradients from the valley or the mountain road.

  The westering sun was on his back as he saw out the last of the daylight, dangling his legs over the rim of his hiding place. Soon the brown light of dusk choked the colour and detail from the valley and his mind turned naturally to thoughts of warmth and food. He decided to risk a fire and wandered the slopes collecting dead bushes and branches from the few stunted trees that grew there, before sitting down to make tinder and kindling with his dagger. He shaped a nest of dried grass and put the tinder inside, then sharpened a stick and began vigorously rubbing a groove into a piece of wood. After a few moments he tipped a small coal into the tinder nest and blew on it until a puff of flame appeared. Carefully shielding it from the night breeze, he transferred it to the pile of kindling and soon a crackling blaze was bathing the rocky shelf in orange light.

  The rest of the night was lonely and thought-filled. As Eperitus lay in his thick blanket and listened to the spit and pop of the fire, he looked up at the white moon that flitted between the ragged fronds above and thought of the future. Meeting Odysseus had been a blessing from the gods: at the prince’s side he had fought men and monsters and brought glory to his name; he had spent months in the company of Greece’s finest men, and had even spoken with one of the immortals. But now the fickle gods had forsaken him again, taking back what little honour he had won for himself and leaving him once more destitute and without hope. Unless he could somehow rejoin Odysseus and help him win back Ithaca, he would never redeem himself from the shame of what his father had done. Tortured by the memory, his descent into sleep was slow and fitful.

  The next day was spent watching the gleaming walls of Sparta. The courtship of Helen would soon be over, and once a husband had been named the suitors would quickly begin to leave. Odysseus and his men might return the way they had come, but it was more likely they would head south to the coast and hire a ship to take them home, so he kept a watchful eye on both routes.

  By the time dusk had fallen, he had seen nothing more than farmers’ carts, a few horsemen and the usual traffic of villagers and merchants entering or leaving the city gates, and was relieved to be able to leave his post and search the hillsides for firewood. He also looked for edible plants, conscious that his food supply would not last for long, but came back empty-handed. That evening his stomach rumbled in protest at the measly crust of bread and the strip of beef he allowed himself. After months of feasting on the best food and wine in all Greece, it was difficult to adjust to a harsher diet of restricted rations.

  As he lay down to sleep, the howl of a wolf broke the stillness of the night. It was near at hand and its lonely cry rolled emptily off the slopes and cliff faces around him, leaving behind an ominous silence. He drew the dagger from his belt and placed a fresh log on the fire, to act as a brand should the animal or any of its pack have the courage to investigate his camp. Then the moon broke free of the wall of cloud that had contained it for some time. It shook off the last clinging tatters of vapour and threw its unhindered light down across the valley and the mountains. Only then did he notice the tall black figure standing at the edge of his camp.

  He seized the flaming brand from the fire and held it above his head, the dagger gleaming in his other hand. He felt exposed and vulnerable without his weapons, and to his dismay saw that the figure was armed with a tall shield and two spears.

  ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘A friend,’ the figure replied, and Eperitus was shocked to hear a female voice. She moved into the circle of orange light cast by the fire, which threw aside the shadows that had veiled her identity.

  ‘Clytaemnestra!’

  ‘I’ve brought your weapons,’ she announced, throwing his grandfather’s shield onto the pile of brushwood he had collected to supply the fire. His spears were dropped on top of it with a clatter, followed shortly after by his bronze sword, gleaming fiercely in the firelight. Last of all was the dagger Odysseus had given him, but this she offered across the flames. ‘After all, Eperitus, a warrior is nothing without his arms.’

  He dropped the brand back into the fire and eagerly took the dagger from her outstretched hands. For the first time since his weapons had been handed in to the palace armourer at Sparta he felt complete again, conscious once more of his own independence, his power to defend himself and impose his will on others by force of arms. He was a man again, able to do and say whatever he pleased, a freedom that was bounded only by the will of the gods and his own sense of honour. He thanked her and put the dagger into his belt, tossing the other over the lip of the slope.

  ‘I’ve brought food, too,’ she said, handing him a small woollen sack.

  She turned to warm herself by the fire and Eperitus joined her.

  ‘Thank you again,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the least I could do. You’ve been a good friend to me these past months, letting me burden you with my problems.’

  ‘But how did you know where to find me?’

  ‘I have an insight that few possess,’ she answered, staring hard at the flames. ‘There are gods older than the Olympians, Eperitus, and they can give their followers powers the rest of the world has forgotten. They told me you were hiding here.’

  Eperitus wondered whether those same mysterious powers had helped her to slip out of the city unseen, and without a horse or a wagon had enabled her to carry the heavy and awkward bulk of his weaponry up here to this shelf of rock. But something inside him was weary of probing further, perhaps for fear of receiving a straight answer. Looking at Clytaemnestra’s drawn and prematurely wise face, there were some things in the world he preferred to remain in ignorance of.

  ‘I also know you were with Peisandros the Myrmidon two nights ago, so could not have been Penelope’s guest.’

  ‘If that’s the case,’ Eperitus asked, ‘has this insight revealed to you who was with Penelope?’

  ‘No. The gift is a double-edged sword. It reveals many things and gives powerful knowledge, but it omits things, too. However, I don’t need second sight to know who was with Penelope that night.’

  ‘Perhaps it was Agamemnon?’ Eperitus said, clumsily trying to divert Clytaemnestra’s suspicions – the fewer people who knew the truth, the safer Odysseus would be. ‘You’ve told me he’s often unfaithful.’

  Clytaemnestra gave a short laugh. ‘Agamemnon is sleeping with my mother. He enters her each evening whilst Tyndareus presides over the banqueting, then returns again before anyone can become suspicious. Besides, I know it was Odysseus – I brewed the love potion that brought him and Penelope together. And why else would you take the blame for a crime you did not commit?’ She switched her glance from the flames to Eperitus. ‘I must go now, but I’ll return soon with more food. And don’t worry about watching the road – Odysseus won’t be leaving for a few days yet.’

  She came back three nights later, startling him as she moved noiselessly into the ring of light from the fire and sat down beside him.

  ‘Here,’ she said, handing him a sack of provisions. ‘Fresh from the night’s banquet.’

  She held her hands up to the flames and in that dancing light, as her breath blew feathers of vapour into the cold night air, Eperitus noticed how beautiful she was. There was nothing of Helen’s powerful attraction in her features, but she had a mysteriousness about her that he found quietly appealing. Her large, sad eyes seemed almost bottomless as they reflected the flickering light; as if the knowledge of all human experience was imprisoned within them, t
hreatening to burst free and flood the world with its misery.

  He opened the bag and took out a haunch of brown meat, still shiny with grease, and bit into it in an effort to turn his thoughts from the woman beside him. His stomach craved the taste of real food again, unaccustomed as it was to the mould-scraped bread and leathery strips of beef he had been living off since his retreat to the mountains. Clytaemnestra watched him with an undecipherable look.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he offered.

  ‘I’ve eaten my fill,’ she replied. ‘It came from the table of your master’s wedding feast.’

  Eperitus choked, coughing violently until Clytaemnestra had to thump him hard on his back to dislodge the piece of meat. He spat it into the fire.

  ‘Odysseus and Little Ajax both wanted to marry Penelope,’ she continued, ‘so Icarius suggested they race for her. Odysseus won and they were married this afternoon. All very straightforward and simple; a quick ceremony with Penelope’s close family, Odysseus’s men and the suitors as guests. No need to plan a wedding feast, just rearrange the seating for the usual evening banquet. You seem surprised, Eperitus.’

  ‘I am,’ he answered. ‘I knew of his attraction to her, of course, but he always said she treated him with contempt. That’s why I couldn’t understand why he would be in her bedchamber.’

  ‘I helped with that,’ Clytaemnestra admitted. ‘Not that Penelope really needed my help. She just needed to have her eyes opened to what her heart really wanted.’

  But Eperitus was not listening. He sat staring into the flames until his eyes watered, thinking about the news Clytaemnestra had brought. His emotions were a confusion of jealousy, frustration and anger that he did not understand. Was he annoyed that Odysseus had abandoned his greatest chance of saving Ithaca for the sake of a woman? Or was he simply jealous that his friend had achieved his heart’s desire, whilst he was left forgotten on a mountainside with little hope for the future?

  Clytaemnestra sensed Eperitus’s sadness and put a hand cautiously upon his shoulder. She began stroking him with awkward movements, her long fingers running towards his neck and rubbing against the knuckles of his upper spine. They lingered there and his thoughts, for a moment, were no longer directed against Odysseus and Penelope but dwelt upon her. He thought of what it would be like to return her touch, to hold her slender body in his arms. Women had rarely featured in his martial lifestyle, but he would have given anything to be with her there and then. But the moment slipped away. She withdrew her hand, tucking it into a fold of her clothing as if burnt. She stood.

  ‘Soon my father will announce Helen’s husband. I’ll return to you then so you’ll know when to expect Odysseus’s departure – he won’t leave before the marriage ceremony. That’s assuming you still wish to serve him.’

  The question of not serving Odysseus had never crossed Eperitus’s mind. Despite his moment of jealousy, he was bound to the prince by an oath and would not go back on his word. His only hope of finding a home lay in the liberation of Ithaca, and he would do everything in his power to help Odysseus win back his homeland.

  ‘I do,’ he said.

  Without a word, Clytaemnestra disappeared back into the night, leaving him to wonder once more how she would return to Sparta through the perils of the dark. Shortly afterwards he heard the cry of a lone wolf on the valley plain below, calling out into the emptiness of the night.

  Despite the news of Odysseus’s marriage to Penelope, Eperitus spent most of the next day thinking of Clytaemnestra. As he watched Sparta for signs of any activity, he found himself looking forward to the evening and the possibility of her return. She had a strength and hardness he both admired and pitied. The cruelties she had suffered over the years had made her as tough as any warrior he knew, but beneath her flint-like exterior was a softness that was deep and consuming. He had seen glimpses of the real Clytaemnestra during the months at Sparta – brief, heartfelt smiles or moments of tenderness when the natural beauty of her face shone through – and it saddened him that she was the prisoner of a forced, loveless marriage.

  As the sun threw the shadows of the mountains across the Eurotas valley, turning the landscape from sallow ochre to a dun brown, he felt keenly the lack of human company. He missed the closeness he had felt in belonging to Odysseus’s men, and it was hard not knowing what was going on at the palace. He wondered how Ajax had reacted to the choice of Menelaus to marry Helen, as Athena had said would happen. And what of Diomedes, the proud warrior who was deeply in love with the princess? How had Little Ajax fared with the loss of Penelope to Odysseus? And what of Helen? With all her hopes of freedom dashed, how would she cope with marriage to a man she did not love? He felt for her most of all, and pitied the girl whose youthful hopes never had a chance of being realized.

  These thoughts buzzed around his head long into the night, until the moon was overhead and he knew Clytaemnestra would not appear. Even then sleep was slow in coming, but finally the pressure on his eyelids became too much and he slept until the light of the sun on his face woke him.

  There were no signs that he had been visited in the night and so he went about his usual tasks of gathering wood and looking for food. The rest of the day passed in much the same way as the one before, followed by an equally restless and, ultimately, disappointing evening. The next morning he was woken not by sunlight forcing its way through his eyelids, but by splashes of rain on his face. He looked up, blinking against the heavy droplets, to see a ceiling of grey cloud covering the valley and mountains. Quickly he carried his supplies of food and wood into a niche in the rock face and spent the rest of the day hidden beneath the protection of its broken roof as the rain came down.

  Making a fire in those conditions was difficult, but as the rain trickled away slowly to nothing he eventually succeeded in his task. Soon a great blaze was burning in the darkness and he stood naked before it, holding first his tunic and then his cloak up to the heat to dry. Then he heard a sound behind him and turned to see Clytaemnestra standing there, shamelessly eyeing his nakedness.

  He hastily threw the cloak about his waist and apologized. Saying nothing she approached the flames and picked up his tunic. He put a hand out to take it from her but, as he did so, she threw it onto the flames.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he objected, trying to get hold of a corner of the garment and pull it free of the flames, though without success. ‘That’s my only tunic. Do you want me to look a fool when I finally get down from this mountain?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she replied, calmly. ‘That’s why I brought you this.’ She held up a new tunic and handed it to him. ‘I made it myself, especially for you. That old rag you’ve been wearing is a disgrace for a nobleman, so travel-worn and threadbare. Don’t worry, it’ll fit you perfectly.’

  Eperitus looked at the garment. He could detect Clytaemnestra’s scent on it, and imagined her long-fingered hands working on the soft material, just for him. He met her eyes and saw that the veil of cynicism and anger had lifted to reveal a young woman in the prime of her life.

  ‘I’ll put it on now,’ he said, and walked behind a corner of rock to change.

  As Eperitus slipped the cloak from around his waist and stood naked once more in the cool night air, he suddenly felt himself being watched. He turned and saw that Clytaemnestra had followed him, but instead of covering himself he allowed her to look at him. It was exhilarating, and for a moment he felt godlike, worshipped, desired. Then he pulled the tunic over his head and picked up his cloak. She returned to stand by the fire as he followed.

  ‘So Helen’s husband has been chosen,’ he said, as if nothing had happened between them. But something had. The usual formality of their relationship had been bridged, and the bridge could not be recrossed.

  ‘Yes. They were married today.’

  She stood between himself and the fire, her back turned to him, and he could see the silhouette of her body through the thin material of her dress: her bony shoulders; the narrow hips and waist; the g
ap between the meeting of her legs. A tingling feeling crept across his skin and spread through his whole body, exciting the flesh and shaking off the cold of the night. He wanted her. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her and then to take her, to journey where he had never ventured before.

  ‘It was Menelaus, wasn’t it?’

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked, turning towards him.

  ‘A god told me.’

  Clytaemnestra gave him an inquisitive look that was halfway between disbelief and curiosity, but she did not question his knowledge.

  ‘Anyway, it’s over now and the suitors – all but Menelaus, of course – will be leaving over the next couple of days. I hear Odysseus and his new bride are heading for the sea tomorrow afternoon. They’ll follow the course of the Eurotas and hire themselves a ship when they reach the coast.’

  ‘So your husband’s plans for a war on Troy have failed?’

  ‘Yes. Utterly,’ she said, with a grim smile of quiet triumph. ‘There’ll be no war unless Priam turns his ambitions towards Greece itself. Agamemnon’s dream to unite the Greeks can never be revived now.’

  ‘But when Menelaus inherits Tyndareus’s throne, the Atreides will rule the two most powerful states in Greece. With the combined armies of Sparta and Mycenae they could conquer all the other states, effectively giving Agamemnon what he wanted anyway.’

  Clytaemnestra shook her head. ‘He’s ambitious, but he isn’t a tyrant. He believes in unifying Greece by mutual agreement, not subjugation. If he were anybody else I could almost admire his vision and his commitment. But he isn’t anybody else; he’s my husband and he’s a bastard. I curse him!’

  She spat over her shoulder into the flames.