The Girl From Ithaca

by Cherry Gregory

  I was discovering that too much wine made me uncharacteristically impatient. “Hurry up brother, tell us about the curse.”

  Odysseus took another long drink and then started his story. “Way back in time, beyond the memory of anyone alive today, there was an extremely wealthy king called Tantalus. This Tantalus was the great grandfather of Menelaus and Agamemnon. It’s said he was allowed to dine with the gods, but the great wealth and easy life made him greedy and arrogant. Having power over ordinary mortals was no longer enough, Tantalus wanted power over the gods. He knew eating human flesh was an offence, even for the gods, and thought it’d be an entertaining trick to make them break their own laws. So he invited them to a feast where the flesh of his own son Pelops was cooked in a stew. Fortunately all the gods realised it was human flesh and refused it, all except for Demeter. She ate part of the boy’s shoulder before she realised what she was eating.”

  It was getting dark. Through the flickering light cast by the fire, I could just see the faces of Odysseus and Ellissa. It felt as if the gods were sitting beside us, listening to the tale about themselves. I felt uneasy. It was hard to say if the gods would be pleased or angered by this retelling.

  “How did they punish Tantalus?” Ellissa asked.

  “They were furious,” Odysseus explained. “They brought Pelops back to life and then punished Tantalus with eternal torment in the Underworld. That’s why he stands in a pool that drains away when he tries to drink and where fruit dangles before his eyes yet is always whisked away when he reaches up to eat them. A horrible but perhaps deserved punishment.”

  I saw Ellissa nodding solemnly but I was confused. “If Tantalus has been punished for his crimes, why should that affect Menelaus?”

  “Because Zeus put a curse on his family and because Pelops, although in many ways a hero, went on to commit an offence which initiated a second curse.”

  “So what did Pelops do to deserve that?” I asked, sliding off my stool and stumbling to my bed. The room seemed to be moving.

  “Pelops fell in love with a princess called Hippodamia. Her father made a rule of challenging her suitors to a chariot race, saying that the loser would be executed. Pelops bribed the king’s charioteer to loosen the linchpins on his master’s chariot. As a result, the chariot crashed and the king was killed.”

  “Surely he didn’t deserve a curse for that, because the king was trying to kill him,” I said, closing my eyes.

  “Ah, that’s true, but it’s what Pelops did afterwards that brought the curse,” Odysseus said, pausing for a while. “Pelops was ashamed of the way he’d won the race and thought the charioteer would reveal the deception. So instead of rewarding the charioteer, he killed him. As he died, the murdered man placed a curse on Pelops’ descendants.”

  That was why Menelaus was concerned about the curse passing to his daughter. I struggled to work out the generations, my mind cloudy with wine. “The next generation? Does that include Atreus, Menelaus’ father?”

  “Yes, we’ve now come to Atreus. Atreus discovered that his brother had seduced his wife. So he took revenge by killing all but the youngest of his brother’s sons. In return, Atreus’ brother put a third curse on the family. He vowed that his surviving son would get revenge.”

  “What a family! No wonder bad things keep happening to them if they go round killing their sons, seducing their brother’s wives and murdering nephews,” Ellissa cried. “Agamemnon has some of the family traits, but Menelaus isn’t like the rest of them. I’d say he’s nothing to worry about.”

  “But you can see why he’s concerned about a curse,” Odysseus said. Then he paused. “What’s wrong, Neomene? Is it the wine?”

  “The surviving son, the surviving son of Atreus’ brother. He’d be cousin to Agamemnon and Menelaus, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes, he lives on a large estate near Mycenae. He refused to take part in the war,” Odysseus explained. “I think his name is Aegistus.”

  “Aegistus?” I said shakily, remembering where I’d heard the name before. I opened my eyes and stared at my brother. “Aegistus was at the Mycenaean Palace last year, when I stayed overnight. I didn’t think anything of it at the time; it seemed sensible to have a cousin there to safeguard his family and kingdom.”

  Odysseus blew out his cheeks. “Mycanae’s a large kingdom, Clytemnestra would need a loyal advisor, much like I left Mentor with Penelope. With Phoebus not being there … ”

  “But it’s not the same! Mentor isn’t sworn to take revenge against you!” I cried. I tried to think back to that night at the palace. “I think Iphigenia was trying to tell me, but I was too stupid to understand. She said she wished Phoebus was staying in Mycenae to help her mother. It was when Clytemnestra and Aegistus were arguing and he was telling her to be patient.”

  “It doesn’t sound good,” Ellissa said.

  “We can’t be sure. The child may have meant she had a personal preference for Phoebus, nothing more than that,” Odysseus reasoned. He stared into his wine. “Do not speak of your doubts. If Agamemnon hears a hint of this, he’ll want revenge and kill Clytemnestra on his return to Mycenae.”

  “I won’t say a word,” I whispered.

  Ellissa shook her head. “No, not a word.”

  Odysseus sighed. “It’s almost a year since we saw our wives. Who knows what takes place in our absence.”

  I lay down again and let the room spin. In my heart I knew Clytemnestra was capable of being unfaithful to Agamemnon and more worrying, I knew Agamemnon was capable of killing Clytemnestra. As the room continued to spin, my eyes blurred and I saw blood mixed with water.

  Chapter TWENTY-ONE

  The Prize

  A stunted willow was the only tree in the camp, somehow managing to cling on to life at the very edge of the beach. When its leaves turned yellow and then red and brown, it was a signal that the summer was over and a reminder that a full year had passed since we’d arrived in Troy. Eventually the wind changed and those brown leaves swirled away, taking with them any hope of a journey home before the spring.

  During the darkest of those days, we endured a storm that raged against our shelters for ten days. It was bad enough to be trapped in our hut, with the gale shaking the walls and rain pouring in torrents from holes in the thatched roof, but it must have been torture for the men cramped together in their draughty tents. A few men had extra tasks to break the monotony, such as the stable boys who fought their way to the horses and Ajax’s men standing sentry at the boundary gates. But most of the men could do nothing except try to keep dry and wait for the storm to break.

  Odysseus ventured out every morning and stayed with Medon and Evander until noon. During the first four or five days, he said the men were in fair spirits, playing dice, gambling or telling stories, even while the storm tried to sweep the tents away. When the wind and rain lessened for a moment, we’d catch snatches of songs or the hesitant sound of a flute. But by the sixth day, most had abandoned the songs and crouched together with eyes half shut, wrapped in any spare blankets or animal skins they could find, thinking only of survival.

  Ellissa coped better than I did. She sat near the brazier and busied herself with her sewing, while I ran with spare pitchers, trying to catch the rain as yet another hole in the roof let the rain through. When Odysseus was with us, he’d tell stories and even showed us dice games that men played, games I’d never been allowed to play before. Sometimes we just talked or sat hunched by the fire, grateful we weren’t in one of the tents.

  It wasn’t always like that. Most afternoons Odysseus took wine to Medon and Evander’s tent or went in search of Diomedes and Menelaus. Those afternoons were the worst for me. Ellissa would drop off to sleep, and with Odysseus gone, I was left alone with my thoughts of home and Iphigenia.

  And I missed Io.

  Sometime after noon on the ninth day, I dragged open the door and hurried to collect water from the rain barrel. Two men walked past, their cloaks flapping and their heads down, battlin
g against the wind.

  “I think it’s clearing, there’s a few out and about,” I gasped.

  Ellissa looked at me doubtfully. “It doesn’t look like it. You’re drenched already.”

  I pushed the wet hair from my face. “Not as bad as this morning. I’m going to take a look outside.”

  “You’re not thinking of finding Io, are you? Agamemnon will be there and you’ll make it worse for her. It’s better if we wait until she comes to us.”

  I sighed. Ellissa had read my thoughts again. “All right, I’ll keep away from Agamemnon and go in the opposite direction.”

  “Probably not Menelaus either. That’s where Odysseus has taken his best wine.”

  “Then that limits me a bit. Not to the right or to the left. It only leaves the sea or Trojan land.”

  Ellissa smiled. “Antilochus might be glad to see you.”

  Holding the hood over my face, I peered through the rain. The two men had gone. The only soldiers I saw were four Spartans holding on to their tent. Hearing laughter from Menelaus’ hut, I hurried past and kept going until I reached the Pylian camp.

  “I was … I was looking for your father,” I said, losing my confidence when I saw Antilochus standing at the door.

  “Come in out of the cold. Father’s gone to see Menelaus, but my brother and I are here, if we’ll do.”

  Antilochus put his arm round my shoulder and gently took my cloak. Thrasymedes made room for me at the table where they’d been playing a board game. I looked at the long polished block of wood, with pictures etched around the sides, and holes along one face. They were using a dice and four coloured pieces of wood, but I’d never seen such a game before.

  “I don’t want to interrupt,” I said, when Antilochus sat next to me.

  Thrasymedes laughed. “We want you to, we only play this when we’re really bored. The trader told me it’s a game from Egypt and their kings play it.” He pulled a face. “I think he was lying. With all their gold and the fertile land, and the long river to sail and hunt along, those Egyptian pharaohs must surely have something better to do.”

  “Perhaps they play it on their military campaigns,” Antilochus said. “Perhaps Egyptian princes have to sit in their army camp and listen to their father’s old battles too.”

  Thrasymedes picked up the dice, throwing it up and catching it several times. He turned to me. “You see, there’s a limit to the number of times you can listen to details of father’s battle against the Spartans without going mad. This morning, I cracked in the middle of the tenth recital, but big brother held on until number sixteen.”

  Antilochus leant back in his chair. “That’s when we resorted to playing this Egyptian game, and as soon as father realised we weren’t concentrating on his reminiscences, he declared he’d a meeting with Menelaus.”

  “He probably has, because Odysseus has gone too, with some of his best wine. I heard a lot of laughter when I came past the hut,” I said.

  “Ah, but I bet father won’t admit it was a drinking session,” Thrasymedes said. He looked at Antilochus. “What do you think he’ll tell us when he gets back?”

  “Probably mention something about bumping into Odysseus and then, as luck would have it, seeing Agamemnon and Diomedes or Ajax and Achilles there as well. Of course, one of them will have had an urgent matter to discuss, so they had a drink of fine Spartan wine with Menelaus while they decided what to do.”

  They burst into laughter and then I laughed too, from the enjoyment of being with them and the relief that they wanted me there. I stayed much of the afternoon, not talking about anything in particular, and certainly not the war.

  “I stayed in Mycenae with father for a few days, as a guest of Agamemnon,” Thrasymedes said. “Our palace is the same design as theirs, but it feels much lighter and warmer. Even our frescoes along the walls are brighter. It’s hard to say why exactly, but it’s as if Agamemnon puts his oppressive stamp on everything he touches.”

  I understood what he meant about Agamemnon. I was describing my visit to Mycenae, when the door crashed open and Nestor rushed in, bringing a gust of cold air with him. Antilochus took the wet cloak, shook it and placed it near the fire. The old man beamed at us and held up a leather bag.

  “It’s good to see you here, Neomene. I hope my boys have treated you well. I was on my way to discuss a few things with Menelaus and as fortune would have it, Agamemnon, Odysseus and Achilles were there. We discussed ways of encouraging the men through this awful weather.”

  Thrasymedes grinned at his brother, but Antilochus managed to keep a straight face as Nestor pulled a gold platter from his bag and passed it to him.

  “Agamemnon has distributed some of Achilles’ loot. Look at the pattern round the edge, Antilochus. Rather fine, don’t you think? In return for the treasure, he wants each leader to go around their camp this afternoon and improve morale. Talk to the men, Agamemnon says, and slap them on the back.” Nestor shook his head. “That may be his style, but you know it’s not mine. The men would suspect something was seriously wrong if I walked up and started thumping them.”

  He slapped Thrasymedes on his shoulder in a weak imitation of Agamemnon trying to be friendly, and we laughed at the awkwardness of it.

  Antilochus smiled. “Yes, I think it’s best if you avoid that, Father. So what’s your method going to be?”

  “An easy one, my son. I’m sending you boys out there, while I sleep off the goblet of wine I sampled. Tell the men I’ll get some women from Thrace to amuse them once this bad weather is over. And Thrasymedes, you can check they’ve got enough food and make sure the animals are fed. Antilochus, I want you to watch out for arguments or rivalries amongst the men. Cooped up like this, the slightest disagreement can escalate.”

  “We know,” Thrasymedes said, glancing at his brother.

  Antilochus handed him the gold platter. “Seems we’ll be working hard for this.”

  Nestor sat down by the fire and held his hands to the flames. “I suggest you use your particular strengths. Antilochus should concentrate on sorting out any ill-feeling, perhaps moving one or two men into different tents if you think it necessary. Thrasymedes, you might try cheering them up with a tale or two. But do what seems most suitable for each tent. I believe Odysseus was telling a few stories earlier, but now he’s playing a game of dice.”

  Nestor rested his feet on a stool Antilochus had made for him. By the time we’d each found our cloaks and then turned round to say goodbye, the old king’s eyes were closed and he’d a contented smile on his face.

  “We’ll escort you back to the Ithacan camp, Neomene. I don’t think Father will be doing much entertaining for a while,” Antilochus said.

  Ellissa was warming herself by the brazier when I struggled into our hut. She looked up and beckoned me over. “Sit by the fire and get dry, you look frozen. Odysseus came back, but now he’s out in the camp again.”

  “Playing dice?” I asked.

  She chuckled. “Oh, he told me not to tell you that.”

  “Put a few more sticks in the fire, Ellissa, I’m going to see what he’s up to.”

  I gasped for breath as the wind pushed against me, trying to send me in a direction I didn’t want to go. Sheltering behind a cluster of tents, I listened for my brother’s voice. At first the rain and the crash of the waves was all I could hear; then a familiar laugh from one of the larger tents.

  “Odysseus, you in there? Can I have a word?”

  My voice sounded faint against the wind and the sea, but I knew they’d heard me because all went quiet inside. Then fingers untied the flap on the tent and the top half of Odysseus appeared, looking comical as he stared up at me.

  “You’re playing dice,” I said.

  Odysseus smirked. “It’s a good game, though I’m not doing so well. I’ve already lost some of Agamemnon’s gold.”

  Odysseus retreated inside for a moment. I heard men’s voices and the murmurings of a discussion. Then he returned to open more of th
e flap. “They say come in and join them for a game.”

  I found seven men squashed into the tent with their woollen blankets rolled up and pushed to one corner. Agenor our stable boy was there, sitting crossed leg and wrapped in cloaks much too large for him, his fair hair sticking up in tufts. He smiled at me as I squeezed into a space between Odysseus and a carpenter called Epeius. Epeius handed me the dice.

  “Doubles are the highest and double six wins. See if you’re luckier than your brother,” he grinned.

  I glanced at my brother, who nodded. So I rattled the dice in my loosely clenched hand and tossed them onto the ground in the centre of the group. They spun round and finally clattered to a halt in front of Agenor. Double sixes. The men chuckled.

  “Lord Odysseus, you’ve been beaten by your sister!” the stable boy grinned. He leant forward and scooped up the dice, throwing them into the air. The men scrambled to move their feet as the dice bounced along the ground and then rolled in separate circles, before coming to rest on a six and a six.

  “Ah,” said Odysseus, “the luck of the young. Let’s see if my fortune has improved.”

  I noticed he flicked his wrists when he held the dice. That had to be way he changed the loading. His dice came down a three and a four.

  “Not bad, an improvement,” said Epeius, trying to appear sympathetic. He threw the dice and then shrugged good-temperedly as they rolled around the floor and settled on the two and three.

  The dice went round the group. The nearest score to double six was a five and a four by a leather worker called Lucus.

  “The boy wins!” declared Odysseus, pulling a silver box from under his cloak. “Your prize, Agenor. It’ll make a fine present for a pretty girl when you get home from this war.”

  He handed the prize to the surprised stable boy.

  “And if you prefer, I’ll keep it safe until we return to Ithaca. I wouldn’t want it to fall into thieving hands,” Odysseus suggested.