It was more than a plan: it was a vision — a vision that would change the map of the known world for ever. Even as he had climbed the ladder into the wooden horse, Odysseus had been sure that Agamemnon understood the dream and shared it. But he had come out of Helen’s mansion and stepped into a massacre.
The fire, he was prepared to concede, might have started by accident. But if, with the low cunning and purblind greed of a common soldier, the King of Men had already decided to opt for quick profit rather than the long-term benefits of a less certain vision then the logic became inexorable. To prevent Troy rising again and descending on Argos with the force of the avenging Furies, the destruction must be complete.The city must be burned, its walls torn down, its men exterminated, its women carried away. So even as he licensed Odysseus to give the assurances demanded by Antenor and Aeneas in return for their defection, Agamemnon must have known this was what he would do. He must have been hugging himself with glee when the Trojan defectors accepted those assurances. And why should they not have done when Odysseus had also been deceived?
All his care and craft and guile counted for nothing now. His brain was in flames with the knowledge. If Agamemnon had been standing beside him in that moment Odysseus might have struck him down. But it was another figure that came hurrying towards him out of the night, a huge Ethiopian, one of Memnon’s men, half-naked, his black skin glistening with sweat, his eyes wide and very white. Reflexively Odysseus drew his sword and stuck him through the belly.
The shock of the man’s weight jarred at his arm, driving the sword deeper. The Ethiopian hung there for a moment impaled, grunting with dismay. Odysseus pulled out the blade and stood back, watching him sag to his knees and fall, shuddering, to the ground. He could hear the black man muttering something in his own tongue — a curse, a gasp of execration, a prayer to whatever gods he served, who knew what those mumblings meant?
Odysseus stared down at the dying man, resentful that he had been drawn into the killing. Then his mind swirled in a blur of rage. If Agamemnon wanted blood, then blood he should have. He advanced across the square towards the sounds of slaughter and once he had begun to kill it seemed there was no stopping. He saw frightened faces gasp and cry as they fell beneath his sword. He saw the wounds splash open. He was killing people swiftly, without compunction, as though doing them a service. At one point he slipped on the entrails of a fat man he had butchered and found himself lying beside him, face to face, with the sightless, outraged eyes staring back into his own. Then he pushed himself to his feet again, driven on by an impulse of disgust, filled with fury and self-loathing.
Almost as deep in delirium as Ajax in his madness had once slaughtered the cattle in their pens, imagining them to be his enemies, Odysseus killed and killed again, working his way through the throng as though convinced that each body that fell before him might prove to be the last, so that he could be liberated, once and for all, from this dreadful duty. His mind was numb. His arm ached from the effort. His throat was parched. It all seemed to be happening in silence.
A Visitor To Ithaca
So loud was the anguish at the fall of Troy you might have thought the noise must carry across the whole astounded world; yet it would be weeks before the news of Agamemnon’s victory reached as far as Ithaca. Of all the kingdoms that sent ships to the war, our western islands were furthest from the conflict. We were always last to receive word of how our forces were faring and by the time reports arrived they were far out of date, never at first hand and, more often than not, coloured by rumour and speculation. To make matters worse, Troy was taken late in the year when all the seas were running high and the straits impassable, so the fighting was over long before we got to know of it.
The view must always have been clearer from the high crag at Mycenae but even the intelligence that reached Queen Clytaemnestra was not always reliable, and she was too busy managing Agamemnon’s kingdom in his absence to keep my Lady Penelope apprised of events on the eastern seaboard of the Aegean. Meanwhile the infrequent letters Penelope received from her father, Lord Icarius of Sparta, were always terse in their account of a son-in-law of whom he had never approved. So throughout the war we Ithacans were fed on scraps of information that had been picked up in larger ports by traders who came to the island, or that reached us from the occasional deserter who made it back to mainland Argos. Such men had only a fragmentary picture of events, and who could say whether their accounts were trustworthy? All we knew for certain was that Lord Odysseus had still been alive the last time anyone had news of him.
As Prince Telemachus emerged from infancy into the proud knowledge that the father of whom he lacked all memory was one of the great Argive generals, this proved to be an increasingly frustrating state of affairs. So as his friend, I Phemius — still only a boy myself — did what I could to supply his need with flights of my own fanciful imagination. Each day he and I, along with a ragged troupe of fatherless urchins, fought our own version of the Trojan War around the pastures and coves of Ithaca. From hill to hill we launched raids on each other’s flocks, singing songs and taking blows. Meanwhile, far away in windy Phrygia, Odysseus used all his guile to steer his comrades towards victory over a foe that had proved tougher and more resilient than anyone but he had anticipated.
Then, in the ninth year of the war we learned that an inconclusive campaign in Mysia had ended with the Argive fleet being blown back to Aulis by a great storm. For a time we lived in the excited hope that Odysseus might seize the chance to visit the wife and child he had left so many years before, but all that came was a long letter which was delivered under seal directly into the hands of Penelope.
The next day she summoned my mother and some of the other women into her presence and with the gentle grace that always distinguished her care for our people, she told them that The Raven, the ship in which my father Terpis had sailed from Mysia, had failed to appear at Aulis. There remained a small chance that the crew might have made landfall on one or other of the islands scattered across the Aegean but the women should prepare themselves for the possibility that their husbands were drowned at sea and would not return.
The island rang loud with wailing that day. For me, for a time, it was as though a black gash had been torn in the fabric of things. But remembering how my father, the bard of Ithaca, had sung at the naming day of Prince Telemachus, I converted my fear and grief into a solemn vow that, if he did not return, I would honour his memory by becoming the island’s bard myself.
Meanwhile Penelope gave her son as sanguine an account of the letter as she could. How else was she to speak to a ten year old who knew nothing of his father except her love for him and the fact that almost all those he had left behind on the island spoke of him with affection and respect?
Only many years later, long after the war was won and Odysseus still had not returned to Ithaca, was Telemachus allowed to read the letter for himself. He told me that it contained warm expressions both of undying love and of agonized regret that a hard fate had kept him so long from his wife and son. But it was also filled with bitter criticism of the way the war was being fought. In particular, Odysseus was at pains to distance himself from the decision that had just been taken to sacrifice Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenaia on the altar of Artemis in order to secure a fair wind back to Troy.
He attributed the blame for that atrocity to Palamedes, the Prince of Euboea, a man for whom he cherished an abiding hatred. It was Palamedes who had demanded that Odysseus take the terrible oath that had been sworn at Sparta to protect the winner of Helen’s hand from the jealousy of his rivals — an oath which Odysseus (who was not a contender for Helen’s hand) had himself devised. It had been Palamedes who accompanied Menelaus to Ithaca and compromised Odysseus into joining the war against his will. Now it was Palamedes who had thought up the scheme to lure Iphigenaia to her death in Aulis with the pretence that she was to be married to Achilles, and Odysseus could no longer contain his contempt and loathing for the man’s devious
mind.
Small wonder then that Penelope had been deeply troubled by the letter, for the roguishly good-humoured, ever-optimistic man she had married was entirely absent from its words. In his place brooded an angry stranger about to return to a war which he had never sought. And he did so with his mind darkened by the conviction that the evil shadow of that war was corrupting all on whom it fell.
So the fleet had put to sea again in the tenth year of the war, and we in Ithaca heard nothing further about the fate of those aboard until the spring afternoon several months later when a black-sailed pentekonter with a serpent figurehead put in at the harbour. It bore the arms of Nauplius, King of Euboea.
Nauplius was not the only visitor to Ithaca at that time. Earlier that week Prince Amphinomus had sailed over from the neighbouring island of Dulichion to pay tribute on behalf of his father, King Nisus, who owed allegiance to Laertes, King of Ithaca. This agreeable young man had proved such an entertaining companion that Penelope persuaded him to remain a while after his business with her father-in-law was done. She claimed that he lifted her spirits in what was, for her, a lonely and anxious time. I also grew fond of Amphinomus. He was possessed of a charming, easy-going manner, was eloquent without showiness, and did not condescend when I revealed in answer to his friendly question that it was my intention to become a bard like my father before me. But Telemachus took against him from the first and to such a degree that his mother felt obliged to admonish the boy for his rudeness.
‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ Amphinomus mildly chided her. ‘After all, he has lacked the guidance of his father’s hand.’
‘Sons have lost their fathers in this war and fathers their sons,’ Penelope sighed. ‘Sometimes I can see no end to the woes it brings.’
‘My own father feels the same way.’ Amphinomus gave her a wry smile. ‘He often thanks the gods that I was too young to go to Troy with Odysseus - though there have been times when I bitterly reproached them for the same reason.’
‘Well, I pray that the war will be over long before you are called upon to serve,’ Penelope replied, ‘and not least so that my husband will come back soon to take this skittish colt of mine in hand.’
At which remark Telemachus scowled, whistled his father’s dog Argus to his heel, and left the chamber.
‘Go with him, Phemius.’ Penelope favoured me with the smile that always made my heart swim. ‘See if you can’t improve his ill humour before we dine.’
But when I did as I was bidden, Telemachus merely glowered at me. ‘You should have stayed and kept an eye on him,’ he said. ‘I don’t trust that man. He’s too eager to be liked.’
‘I like him well enough anyway,’ I said. ‘He’s asked me to sing for him tonight.’
But Telemachus was already staring out to sea where the distant sail of an approaching ship bulged like a black patch stitched into the glittering blue-green. ‘Who’s this putting in now?’ he murmured, throwing a stone into the swell. ‘No doubt some other itchy hound come sniffing at my mother’s skirts.’
Until that moment such a thought had never crossed my mind. Penelope was the faithful wife of the Lord Odysseus and everyone knew that theirs was a love-match. While most of the other princes of Argos had lusted after Helen, Odysseus remained constant in his devotion to her Spartan cousin, the daughter of Icarius. Their marriage had been a cause for great joy on Ithaca and though its early years had been shadowed by a grievous number of miscarriages, no one doubted that the shared grief had deepened their love, or that it was only with the most anguished reluctance that Odysseus finally left his wife and newborn son to fight in the war at Troy. Then, as the war dragged on and King Laertes and his queen Anticleia grew older, Penelope had become the graceful Lady of the island. She was always a reliable source of comfort and wisdom to those in need, revered throughout all Argos for her constancy, and utterly beyond reproach. So I don’t know whether I was more shocked by the vehemence of what Telemachus had said or troubled by my sense of its astuteness.
I was fifteen years old at that time. Telemachus was four years younger, yet he had seen what my own innocently cherished infatuation had failed to see — that the fate of Odysseus was at best uncertain and if he failed to return to Ithaca then Penelope would become the most desirable of prizes. I also realized in that moment that if Telemachus had seen it, then others must have seen it too. And with that thought it occurred to me that he must have overheard someone else uttering some such remark as the one he had just made. In any case, my angry friend stood scowling out to sea, too young to defend his mother’s honour but not too young to worry over it.
However the black ship bearing down on our island that day did not carry some hopeful suitor making a speculative bid for Penelope but someone more devious — a bitter old man motivated neither by love nor by lust but by an inveterate hatred, which he did not at first reveal.
I clearly remember King Nauplius coming ashore on the island that day — a scraggy, bald-headed figure in his sixties with a hawkish nose and an elaborately barbered beard. There was a gaunt and flinty cast to his features, and the shadows webbed around his eyes darkened the critical regard with which he studied both our undefended harbour and the homely palace on the cliff. But what most impressed my young imagination were the conspicuous mourning robes he wore. I remember thinking that whatever news this king was bringing, it could not be good.
King Laertes, the father of Odysseus, was not present in the palace to receive this unexpected visitor. In those days the old king had taken to spending more and more time tending the crops and animals on his farm, or simply sitting in the shade, fanning himself with his hat and wishing that his son would return from the foreign war to assume the burden of kingship over the western islands. Laertes had been famous among the heroes of Argos in his day. As a young man, he had sailed to far Colchis with Jason on the raid that brought back the Golden Fleece. He was also among those who hunted the great boar that Divine Artemis had loosed to ravage the lands around Calydon, but he was growing old and weary now. Earlier that week he had received the year’s tribute from Dulichion, Same and Zacynthus, and then done what he could to give fair judgement over the various disputes that had arisen between them while their leaders were away. Now, once more, he had retreated with his wife Anticleia to the peace of his farm.
Having apologized to the unexpected royal visitor for the king’s absence, Penelope was ordering a runner to call Laertes back to court when Nauplius raised a restraining hand and gravely shook his head. ‘There is no need to trouble him,’ he said. ‘Let old Laertes enjoy such peace as this world allows. In any case, it is you I have come to see.’
The words fell on the air as stark and grim as the robes he wore. Sensing that grief had turned to a mortal sickness inside the man, Penelope said, ‘I see you have suffered some great loss, my lord.’ But she was remembering how she herself had suffered at the last visit from the royal house of Euboea. Already she was fearful that the ill news that Nauplius brought with him must press closely on her own life too.
‘A loss from which I do not expect to recover,’ Nauplius answered. ‘This war has cost me my son.’
‘Palamedes is dead?’
The grey eyes studied her as if in reproach. ‘You have had no word from Troy?’
‘We have heard nothing since the fleet sailed from Aulis.’ Opening helpless hands, Penelope shook her head. ‘I grieve to hear of your loss. Tell me, how did this thing happen?’
Nauplius made as if to answer, then seemed to change his mind, shaking his head at the immense burden of what he had to utter. ‘I have sailed far today,’ he sighed, ‘and my heart is heavy with evil tidings. Let me first rest a while and regain my strength. Then we shall speak of the grief that this war has brought to us.’ Nodding with the absolute authority of a sovereign who had decided that everything that needed to be said for the time being had now been said, he turned away, raising a ringed hand to his body-servant for support.
‘Of course,’
Penelope answered uneasily ‘My steward will escort you to your chamber. But first … Forgive me, but I must ask you, Lord Nauplius …’
Frowning, the old king tilted his head to look back at her. Penelope forced herself to speak. ‘Do you have word of my husband?’ She saw how one flinty eye was narrower than the other and its lid quivered like a moth beneath its brow. Into a silence that had gone on too long she said, ‘Does Odysseus live?’
Nauplius drew in his breath and stood with his mottled head nodding still.
‘Oh yes,’ the voice was barely more than a hoarse wheeze, ‘Odysseus lives still. Odysseus lives.’ And again, with a sigh that seemed to rebuke the relief that broke visibly across her face, he turned away.
When Nauplius and his attendants had left the hall, Amphinomus approached Penelope, smiling. ‘Good news at last, my lady.’
‘Yes.’ Penelope stood with the fingertips of her right hand at her cheek. ‘But I fear that Nauplius has more to say,’
Amphinomus shrugged. ‘It may only be that his grief has darkened his view of things. You mustn’t let his shadow dim your own fair light.’
Penelope shook her head. ‘The truth is that I didn’t greatly care for Palamedes. He was a clever man, in some ways as clever as Odysseus, but he lacked warmth. And I have often wished that he had never set foot on this island. If he hadn’t come here with Menelaus all those years ago, Telemachus would have a father to watch over him and I a husband in my bed. Yet one must pity any man who has lost his son.’
‘One must indeed,’ Amphinomus pursed his lips, ‘even though he brings a deathly chill into the hall with him!’
Penelope reproved the arch smile in the young man’s handsome face. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the King of Euboea sickens from more than grief. Also he is as much a guest of the house as you are, sir. We will be civil with him.’ But she was glad of her friend’s company in what threatened to be a difficult and demanding time.
The Return From Troy Page 3
