Dalziel 18 Arms and the Women

by Reginald Hill

  as faithful in friendship as in my brother's name.

  From the London Times.

  AWARDS

  To Gawain Clovis Sempernel for public service - MBE. (On his retirement from the Civil Service we understand that Mr Sempernel is to take up the post of Her Majesty's Honorary Consul in Thessaloniki where he plans to conclude his lifelong undertaking of translating Homer into Latin hexameters.)

  OBITUARIES

  Meredith Morgan: civil servant; passed away quietly at home, after a long illness, bravely borne; greatly missed by her friends and colleagues at the Department of Information Technology.

  Chapter 4

  Young Dawn's rosy fingers stroked Odysseus's cheeks and he was instantly awake.

  But he didn't open his eyes straightaway. Instinct told him he wasn't alone, and instinct was confirmed when he turned over as if in uneven slumber and allowed the thinnest sliver of light under his left eyelid.

  Squatting close by his head, eyes fixed unblinkingly on his face and sword point poised unwaveringly over his throat, was Achates.

  ‘I know you're awake,' murmured the man. 'And I know who you are. Which means every instinct of my brain and belly urges me to kill you. Only the Prince's command prevents me and I'm sorely tempted for once in my life to disobey him. You know what stops me, Greek? You're shit, that's what. You're not worth breaking wind over, let alone my oath. I look at him and I look at you and what do I see? Two men adrift on the great seas, undergoing equal perils over many years. But there the resemblance ends. For my Prince has still got the greater part of his people with him, his father, his son, his officers, his men, their families. While you, you sad fat bastard, are alone. Where are your companions, Greek? Where are your friends, all those poor trusting idiots who sailed with you so many years ago from rocky Ithaca? All gone, all driven down to death by the mighty god whose rage you have so far evaded but only at the cost of all your companions. If you do ever manage to reach your home shore and climb the shingly beach to your mighty stronghold, it will be their bones you hear crunching beneath your feet. But my master, the Prince, when he reaches the promised Lavinian shores, will have his whole race with him, intact, to conquer and colonize our new land. The gods have promised it shall be so. The same gods that you defy and profane and cheat and wheedle and deceive in your efforts to stay alive. So I will obey my Prince, for his commands come ultimately from on high. But at the first sign of treachery, be sure I will plough a trench across that great gut of thine and not relent until I have dug out your heart. So think on, Greek. Take care of what you do and what you say this day, for Achates's sword will never be far from your back.'

  He fell silent and after a moment Odysseus opened his eyes fully, sat up, yawned, stretched and said, ' 'Morning, chuck. Any chance of some breakfast?'

  Half an hour later Aeneas watched impatiently as Odysseus cleaned his third platter of stew.

  'Come, man,' he said. 'I don't know what good this little look-around you talk about can do us, but I do know that time is fast running by.'

  'Plenty of time,' said the Greek, glancing up at the watery sun which was now clear of the horizon and doing her best to show her face through a veil of tattered clouds, but it was a losing battle and what little warmth dwelt in her fitful rays was washed away by the damp wind gusting off the grey sea. 'Two things a man should never neglect in the morning, his bowels and his breakfast, else he's bound to be caught hungry or caught short later in the day.'

  He stood up and belched melodiously.

  'Well, that's me breakfast taken care of. Now for me bowels.'

  He wandered off out of sight behind a rock, followed by the vigilant Achates. When he returned, Aeneas, who was wrapped against the wind in a cloak of heavy fleece, combed till it was fine as gossamer thread and dyed the rich blue of the ocean under more temperate summer skies, offered him a matching garment.

  Odysseus smiled and shook his head.

  'Lovely weather like this, I'd be sweating cobs in yon thing,' he said, pulling out the skirt of his light tunic and pirouetting. 'This'll suit me fine. So let's be off. Best not bring your poodle though. With luck we'll be visiting a high-class lady and a face like his could frighten the land crabs.'

  Aeneas turned to Achates and somewhat apologetically ordered him to stay in the camp.

  The captain's features showed no emotion but he fixed his eyes on Odysseus once more and breathed, 'Remember what I promised.'

  'Oh aye. You'll need a long sword, but. Right, let's be off.'

  He strode away, setting such a sprightly pace that it was all the younger man could do to keep up with him.

  'What's your hurry?' he gasped. 'Where are you heading?'

  'Nowhere. Anywhere. Lovely morning like this, it just feels so good to be alive,' said Odysseus.

  The Trojan looked up at the grey skies and down at the boulder-strewn ground whose only hint of colour came from patches of pustulant lichen. He drew his cloak more tightly about him with a shudder. Apart from the occasional evasive scutter of a crab, nothing moved. There wasn’t even any vegetation to be agitated by the strengthening wind.

  'If this is your idea of a lovely morning, I dread to think what it must be like on Ithaca,' he said surlily. 'Why are we doing this, Odysseus? I'm warning you, if you think you can gain anything by wasting my time, you'd better think again.'

  'Waste your time, Prince? I’d not dare!' exclaimed the Greek. 'Hello. What have we here?'

  They were approaching a great mound of boulders, black and menacing, which looked as if they'd been piled by some monstrous traveller as a waymark. From out of a dark cleft between two of the stones emerged a figure, clad in filthy rags, and female from the length of her snagged and clotted hair. She leaned heavily on a staff almost as warped and twisted as her own skinny frame. Her toothless mouth opened in a silent cackle and from the left side of her hooked nose one bright eye fixed itself on the two men as they approached, while the other orb, whose pupil was a clouded grey, roamed uncontrollably hither and thither as though in search of some message from the heavens.

  'That's her, that same foul hag who visited me in the camp and warned me of my fate,' said Aeneas. 'No use to parley with her. We must force her to take us to her mistress, the nymph, Calypso. Only face to face can we make a plea that may

  But Odysseus wasn't listening.

  To the Trojan's amazement, the fat Greek was running ahead, and incredibly, when he reached the noisome creature standing by the rocks, he flung himself onto the ground, grasped the hem of her foul robe and pressed his face against her filthy claw-like feet. Aeneas, inured though he was by hard experience against terrible sights, found himself gagging at the sight of the man's mouth sucking on those greeny-yellowy running sores.

  'For Athena's sake, Odysseus, remember what you are, man,' cried the Trojan. 'A prince of royal lineage with the blood of gods in your veins! How can we hope to meet with the nymph on equal terms if you abase yourself like this to what must be the vilest of her creatures?'

  But Odysseus only looked up and said, 'Prince, bow down straight off. Even if you're daft enough to reckon you're above paying homage to divinity, at least be a man and give beauty the tribute it deserves.'

  'Beauty!' exclaimed Aeneas. 'I've seen camels' backsides more beautiful than this. She makes Achates look like Lady Helen. Vile hag, take us at once to your mistress or I'll test the depths of your divinity with my sword.'

  His weapon was out and at the creature's throat, but Odysseus leapt to his feet and knocked it aside, then, abasing himself once more, said humbly, 'Forgive this Trojan fool, lady. Grief and loss and wonderment at your great beauty have driven him quite mad. I beg you to enthrone yourself in your bower here and listen to the humble supplications of us poor mortals.'

  The hag stooped and took the Greek's great head in both claw hands and raised it till she could look deep into his eyes.

  'Tell me, Odysseus, what is it you see here?' she demanded in a voice more like the screech of s
ome bird taught to mimic human tones than a real woman's voice.

  'I see noble wisdom and gentle mercy compounded in a face of such loveliness it raises a man's great desire above even his awareness of his minute desert.'

  'Desire? You desire me?' The hag opened her mouth wide to show her rotting gums as she cackled her derision. 'Then feast your lust, thou most cunning of Greeks. Will you not at least vouchsafe me a kiss?'

  Her gaping maw looked to Aeneas like the entrance to Hades. He shuddered to the depths of his being at the thought of coming into contact with those chapped and spittle-flecked lips, of feeling that serpent-scaled tongue darting into his mouth.

  But Odysseus was standing upright, in every sense as his light robe was inadequate to conceal. His arms went around the harridan, his mouth crushed down on hers while his hands pushed through the rents in her disgusting robe and caressed her sharp and calloused buttocks as though they were the soft pink orbs of a girl.

  And suddenly, even as Aeneas raised his sword to bring an end to this obscenity, that's what they were, he stepped back in wonderment as the hag's skew and ancient frame straightened into the shapely form and slender limbs of a young woman and the hideous sunken features filled out and glowed with vigorous health and an unearthly beauty.

  Nor did the wondrous alteration end here. The dark rock cleft from which she had emerged opened up into an airy cavern richly furnished within and overhung without by a rampant vine, heavy with ripening grapes. Bielding woodlands of alders and aspens and sweet-scented cypress grew all around, their branches melodious with chirruping birds. Four springs of the purest water ran bubbling under the trees and across neighbouring meadows, whose green and undulating grass was starred with many-hued violets. It was a scene to make even a god marvel.

  Aeneas sank to his knees, speechless.

  The divine nymph, Calypso (he could not doubt that this was she) was laughing and pushing the ardent Greek away.

  'Odysseus, I had heard that you were ready to assail by cunning or by strength any foe who stood in your way, but I had not thought to find you quite so bold as this.'

  'Lady, I cannot see a foe before me, and it was your own invite that led me on.'

  'Perhaps. But you say you saw me as I am now, not as this poor creature beheld me?'

  'Eyes that have looked on the dead in Hades have had all human scales removed,' said Odysseus seriously. 'From eyes that see as clear as mine not all the magic in the world could conceal divine beauty like yours.'

  'You say so?' said Calypso, looking both amused and pleased. 'And what is it you want of me that you so rudely disturb my repose?'

  'What do I want, lady? Well, I'd rather bring that up in private. Wouldn't want to embarrass the lad here, if you understand me.'

  'This is effrontery beyond punishment!' exclaimed the nymph.

  'I'm glad to hear you say that,' said Odysseus. 'How about reward, but?'

  She shook her lovely head, not in denial but in mock-amazement, and said, 'Well, I will attend to you a while before I decide your fate. Come into my bower.'

  She went into the cavern. Odysseus glanced at Aeneas, winked, and followed. The Trojan took an uncertain step after them but the encircling vine trailed its grape-heavy stems before him, sealing off the entrance.

  Baffled, he retreated and sat on a mossy bank facing the cavern. After a while he felt so warm that he shook off the heavy fleece cloak, and when he looked up he saw that the sky too had been transformed and it was now a flawless vault of the deepest blue with the pulsating orb of the sun almost directly overhead.

  Time passed. He marked its passing by the slow declension of the sun down the western sky. The lower it got, the more agitated he became. Whatever was happening beyond that vine, the nymph's decree was still in force, and that gave him till sunset to flee the island with all save his son, or stay and be destroyed.

  At last, with by his estimate barely an hour to go before the sun lipped the horizon, his patience ran out and he rose and strode towards the cavern entrance with sword outdrawn. But before he reached it, the vine raised itself to the lintel again and Odysseus emerged, adjusting his tunic.

  'How do, lad,' he said cheerfully. 'Sorry to keep you waiting. Eeh, for Priapus's sake, put that thing away. Waving it around like that all the time will get you into bother.'

  Behind the Greek the vine was descending once more but not before Aeneas glimpsed in the depths of the cavern a low couch spread with soft furs and dishevelled silks on which reclined a long and lovely figure aglow with the soft pink freshness of a spring dawn.

  Aeneas said accusingly, 'I'll sheath my sword, Greek, when I know the truth of what has passed between you two in there.'

  'And you a grown man? Use your imagination. A gent doesn't tell, specially not when the other party's a bit of a goddess. Come on. We'll need to move. Not much time.'

  Odysseus strode away. Infuriated, Aeneas began to follow. Then the fat Greek turned round and said, 'Best not forget thy cloak. Don't want to catch a cold, do you?'

  Aeneas suddenly realized he was shivering. The wind had sprung up again, and looking up he saw that the sky was once more overcast and darker than ever with the onset of dusk. He glanced back. The cavern with its protecting vine, the rich woodlands, the crystal springs, the verdant meadows, all had vanished and been replaced by the desolate landscape of grey and black rock.

  He seized his cloak and hurried after Odysseus.

  'Where are we going?' he demanded. 'This is not the way back to the camp.'

  'Bugger the camp,' said Odysseus. 'We're heading for that little bay where you sheltered your fleet. Soon be sunset and that's the deadline for getting off this place, remember?'

  The sword was out again and Aeneas cried, 'What? You think to save your skin by flight?'

  'No, it's more sailing I had in mind, 'said Odysseus. 'Hurry, or you'll not make it.'

  'You are quite mad,' said Aeneas quietly. 'Do you really think I am going to sail away with you and leave my son and my father and all my comrades to their fate? Goodbye, Greek. I only regret I do not have the time to kill you.'

  He turned and began to run back the way they'd come.

  'Where are you going?' yelled Odysseus.

  'Back to the camp to face whatever fate awaits me,' called the Trojan over his shoulder.

  'But there's no one there!' bellowed Odysseus. 'They've all packed up and gone.'

  His voice carried enough conviction to stop Aeneas in his tracks.

  'What do you mean?' he demanded. 'Gone where?'

  'Down to the bay to get the ships ready, of course. Don't you buggers ever listen to anyone? No wonder you lost the war. Come on!'

  But still Aeneas did not move.

  'They have left my boy?' he said brokenly.

  'Don't be daft. He's down there too. But they'll be leaving you if you don't get a move on. Come on. Run! Imagine Achilles is after you. I've never seen anyone run as fast as you lot when the Big Man was on the rampage!'

  They ran, with Aeneas soon too breathless to ask further questions. And at last they were descending the windy path to the bay where the Trojan fleet lay.

  The Greek had not been lying. The strand and the sea were alive with activity. On the ships, sails were already being hoisted in preparation for departure. And best of all, as they reached the shore, Achates came hurrying towards them holding young Ascanius by the hand.

  At sight of his father the boy broke free and rushed into the Prince's fierce embrace.

  'My son, my son,' he cried. 'Why are you not in your nurse's care?'

  'Don't fuss so, Father,' said the boy impatiently. 'And do hurry. Everyone's waiting for you. I'll go and tell Granddad you 're here.'

  He pushed himself free then looked up at Odysseus.

  'Who're you?' he demanded.

  'Me? Friend of your dad's. Name of Odysseus.'

  'Don't be silly. Odysseus is a villain and my father would kill him. Also he's ten feet tall with a lion's head and a serpent's t
ail and you're just an old fat man. Now do hurry, Father.'

  The boy sprinted away.

  'Nice lad,' said Odysseus. 'Need to work on his manners, but.'

  Achates had reached them.

  'Good, you're here,' he said. 'I got your message and we're just about ready to sail.'

  'My message?'

  'Yes. That old hag. The one you gave your ring to for authority. Here, you'd best have it back.'

  He gave Aeneas a ring. The Prince looked at his hand in amazement to notice for the first time the ring was missing.

  'How can such things be?' he asked Odysseus. 'And the nymph, she never left the cavern, for I kept watch.'

  'That's one of the advantages of being divine,' said the fat Greek. 'Can be in two places at once. I should know. She were all over me.'

  'Will you come aboard now, Prince?' said Achates. 'We are ready, and your message was most insistent we must be afloat by sunset.'

  'Right. Fine. We'll be with you in two minutes.'

  Achates turned away, paused, and glanced at Odysseus. No emotion showed on those craggy features but he nodded once then moved away.

  'That 'ud be a thank you, mebbe?' said Odysseus.

  'Do you deserve a thank you? No, I'm sorry. Of course, you must do. What is happening here must have something to do with what happened back there. But no time to talk about it now. We must hurry aboard and once safe at sea, then we can relax with a bottle of wine and, gentleman or not, you can tell me exactly how you contrived to persuade the nymph to change her mind.'