‘Why did he do that?’
‘He decided to renew his allegiance to Agamemnon, so he swung the curved prows round and sailed back to Troy. Then I was split up from Menelaus. We never quarrelled, but we were just off the Cape of Sunium, where Attica impends on the sea, when Phoebus Apollo aimed an arrow at Phrontis.’
‘Phrontis?’
‘Menelaus’s helmsman. He was holding the steering oar at the time, and the ship was driving hard, but he just dropped down dead, struck by the gentle dart, and although Menelaus needed to press on, he wasn’t prepared to drop the body overboard. He’d been the best of steersmen and had guided the ship through many a gale, so Menelaus held on at Sunium in order to allow the man a proper burial.
‘That was bad timing, as it turned out, because when he was under way again a gale got up. He’d reached the steep frowning brow of Malea when the seas lifted like mountains and the fleet was divided. One lot were dashed to Crete and the Cydonians, along the Iardanus. Do you know where Gortyn ends? There’s a sheer rock out there, and the south-westerlies whip in the big rollers against a headland to the left, in the direction of Phaestus, with nothing but the reef for protection. It’s a notorious trouble spot, and the crews were lucky to survive. They made it ashore, but all their ships were splintered on the rocks. Every last vessel. That’s what happens when a god-gale hits you. Zeus doesn’t mess around. And when Poseidon takes prisoners, they don’t live to tell the tale. Yes, they were lucky.’
‘And Menelaus?’
‘Was driven on to Egypt with his five ships, all that was left of the blue-prowed fleet. So he was far from home when his brother was murdered. If he’d been around it would have been Aegisthus who’d died, not Agamemnon. He’d have been flung out on the plains for dogmeat and carrion, and not a Greek tear would have been sprung for him. Do you know that while we were fighting that bloody war, that coward was taking it easy in Argos? His war effort consisted of seducing his own cousin’s wife while the kinsman was besieging Troy. The only siege that skulker carried out was to her bed.
‘At first Clytemnestra turned a deaf ear to his proposals. But he tried the other ear, and she was soon on her back with her legs in the air. Afterwards, Aegisthus seized power in golden Mycenae. To the people he was just a murderer and a usurper, but he crushed them and kept them under his thumb for seven years, till Orestes returned from Athens to avenge his father. And a red end it was for his mother and her lover. After that, Orestes called all his friends to a funeral feast for the mother he had hated. And Menelaus joined him that same day.’
‘So you have no more on Odysseus?’
‘The truth is, I came home without a clue about the ones we’d left behind, or the ones like your father who went their own way. News has filtered through to sandy Pylos over the years, but you know what news is, especially when the years have gnawed away at it. And there was nothing really definite concerning Odysseus, other than tall tales and the tittle-tattle of tramps.’
Clearly there was nothing to be picked up in Pylos, and Telemachus suggested he would try his luck in Sparta, leaving right away.
‘God forbid, young man!’ exclaimed Nestor. ‘Send the son of Odysseus on his way, as if this were a house of paupers? No, you’ll sleep here tonight and leave in the morning, on the condition you call in again on your way back and tell me what you’ve learned. You can either sail on to Sparta, or, if you prefer, take the land route. I can give you a chariot and fast horses, and my son Peisistratus to guide you. He’s the last of my sons, the only one who hasn’t married, and he’ll go with you gladly. I gather Menelaus has just returned from abroad, quite a long journey, and he may well have picked up some fresh news of your father, more than an old object like myself could possibly provide. Even the information I’ve given you is well out of date by now.’
Telemachus thanked the old leader and stooped to kiss him, but Nestor stood up, took his hand in his, and looked sternly and steadily into his eyes.
‘One last thing – don’t spend too long on this visit. Learn what you can, then leave. Don’t be too far from home. Remember Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus. And remember Orestes, who came back and killed his father’s killers. Ithaca is not without its usurpers, so it seems. At least that is their intent. But you can stop them in their tracks, if you act quickly.’
They all retired for the night. But as soon as Aurora brushed the east with pink fingers, Gerenian Nestor rose and ordered everything to be made ready. A heifer fell under the axe, gushing her life’s blood, and was soon roasting on the fire, with the sparkling wine sprinkled over the flames. They ate and drank their fill, but only after Telemachus had been bathed by Nestor’s youngest daughter, the lovely Polycaste. Then the horses were harnessed to the chariot, Peisistratus took the reins, Telemachus jumped up beside him, the whip flicked, and the swift and willing steeds sped off to the plains, eight hooves kicking up the white dust and quickly putting the high citadel of sandy Pylos well behind them.
Another dawn and two more sunsets stained east and west, and still the yoke swayed up and down on the sweating necks as the two princes thundered on under the big skies.
FIFTY-ONE
When they reached the rolling lands of Lacedaemon, deep in the Spartan hills, they found Menelaus busy celebrating a double wedding. He had chosen a Spartan beauty for his beloved son Megapenthes, and his daughter was being married to Neoptolemus, son of the great Achilles. The two travellers were taken through the courtyard and into the palace, under the high roof. They looked up and all around, open-mouthed at the sheer splendour. Everything shone as if it were lit by sunlight or moonlight – gold and silver, amber and ivory, copper and bronze. Polished baths, golden ewers, silver basins, glittering wine cups, baskets of bread, platters of meat – the princes were served in style after the girls had bathed them and rubbed them down with oil, taking away their dust-shrouded tunics and dressing them again in good clean clothes. Menelaus sighed with satisfaction, pleased by their expressions of admiration and awe.
‘Yes, it’s quite a sight for strangers, and I’m glad you make no effort to conceal your appreciation. Why should you? And I make no attempt to conceal how well I did out of the war. Why should I? It cost me ten years of fighting and the lives of many good men. But there’s more than a touch of Troy here.’
‘It’s like heaven,’ said Telemachus, his arms spread wide.
A slight frown from Menelaus.
‘Heaven, eh? Maybe so. But I’d go to hell to have all my old friends back with me instead, all those who fell at Troy so long ago, and my brother especially. He didn’t die at Troy, but it was Troy that killed him, indirectly. No amount of Trojan wealth will ever bring him back to me.’
‘Even so,’ said Telemachus, ‘this is unrivalled. Now I know what it must be like on Olympus.’
That made Menelaus laugh. ‘Well, that is a very great compliment, my boy. But there everything is immortal, whereas even these gold goblets you’re drinking out of will perish eventually, even if it takes centuries, millennia. Having said that, I don’t mind admitting that few can rival me, as you say, in terms of wealth. I brought all this back in my ships from Ilium, from Cyprus and Phoenicia and from Egypt. I visited the Ethiopians and the Sidonians and the Erembi. I saw Libya too. All that is quite apart from Troy. And there I had to fight for what I won. But I did fight and I did win, in spite of the hardships, and all I can say is that I’d give up – well, let’s see, two-thirds at least of my entire estate if that could make my old comrades come back to me again. Yes, I’d go that far. I’d be content to live with a third of what I own just to have them back with me right now in this hall, all those heroes who died at the gates of Troy, before we captured it, and others who died at sea, so far from their native Argos, where the splendid steeds graze. Yes, I’d be happy with that, a mere third of everything I have just to bring back those heroes from the dead, even for one hour. I miss them so. I miss them one and all.’
‘Anyone in particular?’
/> Menelaus hesitated.
‘Without hesitation . . .’
He hesitated again.
‘Without hesitation, I should say that if there is one man I miss most of all, even more than my own brother, that man is Odysseus. Nobody worked harder to bring about the fall of Troy, and he got no reward for his efforts, for god alone knows where he is now, or where his white bones lie.’
When he heard this, Telemachus hid his face in his purple cloak, and Menelaus saw the young man’s shoulders shake. He was embarrassed and wondered whether to ask his guest for his identity at that point or to carry on with his story. He was saved from his predicament by the sudden arrival of Helen.
Down she came, descending with her ladies from her lofty scented chamber and looking like Artemis with her distaff of gold. At once the accessories appeared for her, brought by the adoring maids: a luxurious chair with a stool for her feet, a soft woollen rug, a silver work basket, a gift from Alcandre of Thebes, and from the same Egyptian woman the famous golden spindle. The basket ran on castors and was trimmed with gold. The spindle lay across it with its purple wool, brought by her lady Phylo. It all added up to an image of perfection, everything a woman could have or want to have, everything she could want or want to be. If she acted like a goddess, it was because she had been made to feel like one, with the spoils of Troy all around her. She was back in Sparta, but she was more than Queen of Sparta. She was Helen of Troy. A legend in her time.
Being the daughter of Zeus, a legend, and the nearest thing to a goddess, she went straight to the point.
‘I may be wrong, my lord, but don’t I see a certain family resemblance in the younger of the two strangers who are our guests?’
Menelaus stared.
‘You know, my dear, I’ve been asking myself where I’ve seen this young man before. Or rather not him, but –’
Helen spoke it for him.
‘His father.’
‘My father.’
Menelaus rose at once and threw his arms around the young man.
‘I can barely believe it, but I see now that it’s true. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before – here in my own house after all these years, the only son of my best friend of the war. My god, if only he’d come back, I’d have taken him out of rocky Ithaca and given him a city of his own, right here in Argos. We’d have been neighbours. We’d have met constantly to remember the old times, and it would have gone on like that to death’s door and even the darkness beyond. Of all the men who followed me to Troy, he was the one. And the one who above all others earned his reward, the reward he never had. We went through hell together. And good times too. And we loved one another, none closer. And now the gods have sent his son to console me with this thought, that wherever Odysseus is now, he is not dead, not as long as this image of him is alive and above the earth. This surpasses the only other tributes we can pay to poor mortality – a tear on the cheek and a lock of hair from the beloved’s head.’
This speech drew tears from Telemachus and from Peisistratus too, who remembered his beloved brother, Antilochus, one of the many who never returned from Troy, slain in his case by the splendid son of the dazzling Dawn. Even the child of Zeus broke down and wept with all the others, the incomparable Helen of Argos, terrible as the crocodile of the Nile, the lass unparalleled.
But she could not cry for long. And to ensure the transition to a happier mood, she now slipped into the mixing-bowl a powerful drug which she’d been given by another Egyptian woman, Polydama, wife of Thon, Egypt’s fecund earth always affording ample examples of grief-stealing herbs. This particular drug was one of those sweet oblivious antidotes to sorrow, one of heartsease, free from gall. To take one sip was to forget your troubles and to be incapable of grief, not even if your mother had just died that very day or if you’d seen your son or your brother cut down before you. Not a single tear would trash your face. This was the anodyne that was drunk by all.
After it had taken effect, Helen told the story of how Odysseus had beaten himself black and blue and slunk into Troy undercover like a filthy old beggar, the first part of his plan to take the city by trickery and stealth.
‘He was a master of disguise, and I was the only one who saw through it. A child of Zeus cannot be deceived, you know. But I didn’t betray him, even though he killed a number of Trojans in tight corners and got back to base with a wealth of information. I was glad to help him, because even then I was sick for home and already regretting the infatuation imposed on me by Aphrodite when she put me under the spell of Paris, luring me from lovely Lacedaemon all the way across the wine-dark sea with a womaniser who turned my head for a time and made me abandon our innocent daughter, my bride-bed and a husband who had – has – all a woman could wish for by way of brains and manly beauty.’
The loud applause from Menelaus was echoed by the entire company. Afterwards, he regaled the gathering with the story of the wooden horse, assuring Telemachus that it was his father who had brought the war to an end.
‘He had that streak of daring in him, apart from mere courage. But most of all he was a strategist, unrivalled in his craft. He used mind over matter; that was his strength.’
By the end of the story, the deep of night had crept upon the conversation and everyone retired sleepily to bed. But Telemachus lay awake under the stars, out in the forecourt, his mind filled with his father. Menelaus slept at the back of the palace. Helen lay at his side, breathing sweetly and evenly in her long robe. When Aurora’s crimson fingers imbued the east, Menelaus rose and stirred his guests. He asked Telemachus directly if there was anything else behind his surprise visit to Sparta, anything he could help him with. So Telemachus told him about the difficult situation back in Ithaca, and how his best hope lay in finding fresh information concerning his father. Menelaus was indignant.
‘So these cowards have crept into the lion’s den while the lion is away from home. But when the lion returns to his lair, he’ll tear them to pieces. Take my word for it, Odysseus will make short work of them.’
Telemachus asked him if he had any reason to suppose that the lion was still alive. Menelaus said that the last words he’d heard about Odysseus had come straight from the salty lips of the mighty and immortal seer, Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, and it had been an epic undertaking, first to capture the Old Man and then to make him talk.
‘But I did it,’ said Menelaus, ‘thanks to Eidothee, the Old Man’s goddess daughter, who took pity on me when I was held up for twenty days off the island of Pharos, a day’s sailing out of the mouth of the Nile, in the rolling seas out there. My men were starving and I needed to find a way home. No one knows the highways of the fish like the old seer, but first he has to be caught, and it was Eidothee who told me how to go about it. He eluded me for a long time and tried to evade my questions, but eventually I made him spill out directions, which, much to my dismay, involved returning to the Nile and resuming my voyage from there, after offering to the gods. I also made him disclose all the facts about my comrades and what had happened to them since we left Troy. I learned first about Ajax and how Poseidon had wrecked his long-oared ships on the great cliff of Gyrae and then split the rock in two, leaving one-half standing. The other half that Ajax stood on disappeared into the deeps and took him down with it, to gulp the sea and perish.
‘After that, I got out of him the story of my poor brother, whose ship was spotted by a spy, high in a watch-tower. He’d been posted there by Aegisthus to look out for the rightful king’s return, and this spy went straight to the palace and informed the usurper that the enemy to all his ambition was at hand. Aegisthus chose twenty men and ordered them to be ready to commit murder – and regicide. Then he ordered up a banquet and set out personally in a chariot to bring the king home, with an outward show of welcome but with ugly ideas hissing in his head. My brother landed and kissed the ground, the warm soil of home. The tears hung from his eyes and thronged his beard. He came up with his killer in the chariot, all the way from the
coast, not guessing what was going to happen. And so Aegisthus feasted him and saw him into his bath, where he lay naked and vulnerable, his thoughts on his wife and the joys of bedding her again. He closed his eyes in anticipation . . .
And the room filled up with men, all twenty of them, with swords, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra among them. They were taking no chances. And they felled him as you would fell an ox in his stall, brutally and without warning. The king’s men fought a last stand, but not one of them was left alive. Every one of Aegisthus’s men was killed too; the whole twenty cut down in the palace to the last man. There are different versions of my brother’s tragic death, but that is the version given to me straight from the Old Man of the Sea, and I have no reason to doubt it.’
Silence. Everybody was picturing the palace strewn with corpses, the big butchered body swamped in the bath, the water, dark with blood, spilling slowly over the sides, across the polished floor . . .
‘And Odysseus?’
‘Odysseus. Ah yes – Ajax, Agamemnon, and Odysseus. That’s easy. Odysseus is in the home of the nymph Calypso, on the island of Ogygia. There he languishes, a captive with neither ship nor crew, a prisoner in her bed and a slave to her passion. His eyes devour the horizon and drop salt tears in the ocean, adding brine to brine, and all to no avail. That was the last glimpse of Odysseus caught by the Old Man of the Sea.’
‘So there was no word of his coming home?’
‘Not at that time, though that was a while ago. Let me finish my story, though. The seer ended by telling me about my own fate – which is not to experience the common lot and die in Argos where the horses graze, but to be sent by the gods to join red-haired Rhadamanthus in the Elysian Fields, which never feel a snowflake or a raindrop and hear only the tunes of the soft west wind blowing in from the ocean to refresh its folk. That is my destiny, and that is how the Immortals intend to treat me as the husband of Helen and the son-in-law of Zeus.
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