The Outcast

by Laura Gill

  I knuckled the sleep from my eyes. Melita was pale, her voice grating and quavering. Getting her to agree to board seven young men had been difficult enough, even with the four gold rings I had handed over as payment; it was no time to antagonize her. “Kleitos won’t harm you.”

  “Tell him that!” Tightening her jaw, Melita sniffed the air around us. “You seem sober enough. You can come down and eat something.”

  Kleitos waited until she left, and the heavy tread of her feet receded. “Does she know who she’s speaking to?” he asked softly.

  “Not in the slightest.” I swung my legs over the side of the cot. “She thinks my name is Alastor, and that we are young men making our way in the world.” I ruffled my fingers through my hair, and shrugged. “I doubt she believes that, since we lie around all day without actually looking for work, but she likes the gold, and we lend her a hand when she asks for it, and don’t trouble her or her servants.”

  “Alastor?” Kleitos raised an eyebrow at my chosen pseudonym, the name of a former friend whose father had turned traitor.

  Shrugging again, I stood and stretched, relishing the delicious strain of muscles and tendons. “That reminds me. Is there anyone from our old circle we can count upon? I know who the traitors are, but there surely must be some who would join us.” I kept my voice low, to avoid being overheard by any servant girls working nearby.

  Kleitos got to his feet, shook out the fleece, and handed it back to me. “No. Alastor, Ipheus, Phereklos, Leukas, and Nireus—they’re enemies now. Phausias was killed trying to defend his sisters from Aegisthus’s ruffians,” he answered. “Diokles refuses to take sides. Klymenos took his mother and goods across the border into Sparta when his father didn’t come home from the war, but I’ve no idea where he went.”

  “What about the veterans?” I heard the guards talking in low tones down in the courtyard. An aroma of fresh hot bread filled the air, and my stomach rumbled. “We are going to need more men.”

  Kleitos drew closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. “How many did you bring from Phocis?” I held up five fingers. “And how many are you going to need?”

  “Thirty,” I said. “Those are Pylades’s men downstairs. I need Argives, men loyal to my father, who know the area, can get into the citadel, and do what needs doing.”

  We continued the conversation outside. Kleitos leaned against the balustrade which wrapped around the second story, and gazed out across the neighboring rooftops whose red terracotta tiles stood out vividly against the brilliant blue sky. Two hours past dawn and it was already warm. “What exactly is it that needs doing?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Have you told anyone?”

  “Pylades knows,” I answered.

  Kleitos ground his jaw, brooding and staring into the distance. A servant girl carrying a bucket and scrub brush came up the stairs to the right; she flashed us a nervous smile and ducked into the first cubicle. “I know the man who captained your father’s ship,” he said, muttering from the side of his mouth. “Came here about a year ago on business. He might know others.”

  “Where does he live?” Water sloshed and splashed several doors down.

  “Tiryns,” he murmured.

  “Could you find him again?”

  “Yes. Do you want me to go?”

  I gave him the pertinent details. “Find me committed men who can get the job done and keep their mouths shut. Be cautious, though. If you think they might betray the plan, make sure they hear nothing, or are silenced for good.”

  Kleitos nodded sharply. “Give me four days.”

  We went downstairs to eat, where Pylades and Boukolos were just finishing. Over our bread and cheese, we exchanged pleasantries, innocuous talk that would not alarm our hostess or the cook filleting fresh fish for tonight’s supper.

  Kleitos left for Tiryns immediately after breakfast. Melita noticed his going. “He has gone to find work,” I explained.

  She made a sour face. “The whole lot of you ought to go with him.”

  “And here I thought you liked us!”

  “You’ve no business lying about, strong young men like you.” Melita twisted her mouth into a wry smile, and then snorted, like an exasperated mother. Despite her complaints, we had given her no real cause to regret taking us in, though she would never admit it. “You’re not even looking for work.”

  “Oh, but we are!” I exclaimed. “We met friends last night who will have work for us at the harvest.”

  “And in the meantime you could be down at the harbor unloading vessels or working in the storehouses,” she admonished. “You have no excuse.”

  At such moments, I had to suppress the urge to take her aside and confide my true purpose, but the less she and her household knew, the better. “Are we such a burden on you?” I asked, keeping my tone light and evasive. “Surely there must be something for us to do around the house.”

  Melita accommodated me with a task outside, scraping away the flaking plaster near the kitchen. Boukolos trailed along, teasing me until I handed him the scraper. “Make yourself useful,” I grumbled. Gamely, he set to work, while I mixed fresh plaster to trowel onto the exposed mudbrick.

  “So you went out last night.” Boukolos glanced over his shoulder to see who else might be listening. Arisbas and Nikos spent their watch loitering in the shade ten feet away. The cook was chopping herbs and humming in the kitchen, and the servant girl beating rugs upstairs had moved on. “Did you get anything from them?”

  “Complaints and demands.” I smoothed the lime plaster onto the wall, ignoring the sharp smell. “Once they realize they’ve no other choice, we might start to see some results.”

  “Then let’s pray you don’t have to wait too much longer.” Boukolos worked the scraper, adding to the drift of plaster flakes at his feet. “I hate that beard of yours. Imagine, hiding such a magnificent jaw under such ugly stubble!”

  Even now, he continued the halfhearted wooing he had begun years ago in Phocis, even though he had long ago accepted my disinterest in men. “I’m too old for you, anyway.”

  Later, after we swept the debris and left the new plaster to dry, we retired upstairs for the midday rest. It was far too hot to sleep. No breeze stirred the air, which hung thick and heavy, and made my head ache. Stripped to the waist, I lay awake on my cot, listening to Boukolos snore next door through the thin wall, and contemplated my next move. Should the Argive nobles prove intractable, refusing to provide men or supplies, I would have to find support elsewhere.

  I could always brave the passes of the Parnon Mountains and cross over into Sparta to present my case to my uncle Menelaus, as he and my father had done thirty years ago, when they sought refuge with Tyndareus after Atreus’s murder. My maternal grandfather had aided Agamemnon and Menelaus in their feud against their uncle Thyestes, loaning them men and giving them his daughters in exchange for a lucrative alliance with Mycenae. Circumstances, however, were different now. Menelaus had broken my long-standing engagement to his daughter, citing the same reason everyone gave when debating whether or not to help me, dismissing me as an inevitable matricide. He had sent me lavish gifts and kind words, yet no assistance in reclaiming my birthright.

  Tyndareus would not help me, either. Not once during my exile had he sent a letter or gift. Not once had he deigned to answer my letters. Hermione excused his behavior on account of his advanced age and poor health, but I knew she was simply being charitable; he was an irascible old man who considered me an unfit marriage prospect for his granddaughter.

  I could not recruit men from Phocis. A Phocian coup would alarm and alienate the Argives, and Strophius had always taken the position that this was my blood feud, not his. Either I raised my own fighting force from among Father’s supporters, or forfeited my right to rule.

  The Argive lords must capitulate. I flung an arm over my face. They’ll never get better terms than this. Kleitos had to find those disgruntled veterans, those men hungering to se
rve the House of Atreus once more.

  After a stifling night, a man arrived the next morning with a message to attend Eurybatos at his house that evening. Melita, as was her wont, caught wind of the exchange. “I know that man,” she said. “Are you seeking work with Lord Eurybatos?”

  I nodded. “We were told he has flocks and fields, and pays well.”

  “Hah!” She snorted her derision. “He’s a skinflint, and his wife is even worse.”

  “He is?” I spent the next hour playing the rube, milking her for information about the local nobility. I learned that Menon lived well, despite his protestations of poverty, that Eurybatos and his wife were hounded by creditors, and that Atymnios had dismissed all but his most essential staff and kept his household on strict rations. “Then I won’t ask him for work!” I exclaimed.

  “Indeed!” Melita dabbed her pink neck with a wet rag. “And stay away from Lord Lykeus. He won’t hire a strapping, handsome young man like you, what with his pretty young wife around, that’s for certain! She has hot eyes, they say.”

  I bent to kiss her freckled cheek. “Thank you! Had I known you were so wise, I would have asked earlier.”

  “Don’t bother with the lords.” Melita hid her blush behind the rag. She had a plump youngish face, though she was past forty, and a grandmother. “I know merchants and tradesmen who would be grateful for a good-natured boy like you.”

  It was now my turn to flush, and hang my head, and be abashed, as a naïve youth would be. “I should still go see Lord Eurybatos tonight, because he invited me.”

  Pylades and I left the house at sunset, our ears stuffed with Melita’s admonitions not to drink too much, return too late, or expect anything.

  All the lords had returned, bringing with them scribes with clay, papyrus, and wax to set the terms of their service and reward in writing; they had granted me that much, at least. Working out the details took hours, with the scribes rubbing out and rewording legal niceties on behalf of their masters until everyone was satisfied. I swore dreadful oaths upon my testicles and my own unborn children to restore to the lords their ancestral estates, along with their goods, livestock, and slaves in exchange for fighting men and materiel. However, I did not grant them the right to take as captives the women of the traitorous nobles.

  “That’s absurd!” Lykeus protested. “We’ve always seized women on raids.”

  I held firm. “This is not a raid.”

  “What, aren’t you satisfied with that pretty young heifer you just married, that you want more toothsome maids to molest?” Nearchos snickered. “Perhaps we’ll let you have Lady Chloris.”

  Menon roared, made a disgusted face. “Old Chloris with the hairy warts on her chin?”

  “Except you won’t taking her or any other,” I said sternly. All the lords looked at me, incredulous. “I don’t make war on women, and these have committed no crime except to be bound to foolish and disloyal men. They may return to their families, or seek sanctuary with the gods.”

  Atymnios cleared his throat, commanding attention from the lords, who looked ready to revolt at this loss of their ancient prerogative. “Prince Orestes is correct. This is not a raid, but a restoration of lands and titles. Be content with the hectares and goods and slaves you are going to regain, and show some mercy to these unfortunate ladies.”

  Even so, the lords kept pressing me for greater concessions, wanting me to confer upon them seats on the new royal council, and trying to extract information about my present resources. Had they known the truth, they would have hesitated, perhaps even withdrawn their support, or held out for more.

  By evening’s end, the scribes had transferred the agreement onto papyrus. I affixed my name to each document, then watched each noble sign his own document. Pylades signed as a witness. Then the scribes folded each document into a packet, heated scarlet wax to drip onto the crease, and we impressed our seals before the wax dried. I used Father’s Atreid double lion as well as my own personal seal, a lion mauling a goat, which I had purchased three years ago in Amphissa. I gathered my copies into a leather bag, bade my host and his guests goodnight, then set out into the night with Pylades. The next few days would determine how well my avowed allies kept to their word.

  Melita’s advice helped shape my expectations, and curb any disillusionment. Eurybatos sent two men. Lykeus and Atymnios also sent three apiece, and Nearchos five. I noted how Menon sent only three men, when he as the wealthiest of the dispossessed noblemen could have afforded thrice that. It was something to remember for later, when it came time to appoint councilors.

  In all, the men totaled thirteen, eighteen when added to the Phocians we had brought with us. Not nearly enough to accomplish my goals. Kleitos would make nineteen. Gods, let him succeed in his mission to recruit more men!

  Melita asked questions, of course. It was time to tell her the truth—or at least, a half-truth sufficient to satisfy her inquisitiveness. “These men are here to serve me.” I drew my seal ring, the lion mauling the goat, and showed it to her; she would have recognized the Atreid lions at once. “I’m an Argive nobleman, here to try to recover my father’s lost estate.”

  Paleness crept into her florid face. “You never said.”

  “I didn’t wish to bring you into this business.” I offered a reassuring smile. “I will cause no trouble to you or your neighbors, and will reward you handsomely for your cooperation and discretion, but I must trust you and your servants not to gossip.”

  “Of course,” she stammered, “but the other lords you’ve been visiting have been trying for years to do the same without any luck.”

  “Things are changing,” I told her. “They say the young king will return soon.” People around the agora, I learned, talked fondly about my coming, imbuing it with a dreamlike, heroic quality. Prince Orestes was coming, seven feet tall and black-haired like his late father, at the head of an army numbering ten thousand. With him was Odysseus, the wily king of Ithaca, and Neoptolemus, the gallant, golden-haired son of Achilles.

  Melita looked strangely crestfallen. “Oh, they’ve been saying that for years.”

  “Don’t you believe it?” I asked. “Surely he must return one day.” Risky to say, yes, but it would have been far more suspicious had I not. And no one, it seemed, was expecting a red-haired man dressed as a herdsman, with only six companions.

  “Who knows?” She grasped my hand, squeezed it. “You be cautious, Alastor. The young are always so reckless, so naïve.”

  I gave her my assurances, then crossed the courtyard to address the thirteen newcomers. Gathering them into a huddle, I lowered my voice. “I will give you your orders when the time comes. You will be efficient, ruthless, and obey my commands to the letter. You will be discreet, or it will be death for us all. Is that understood?”

  Scant though their numbers were, these men were not fools. I would have liked to quarter them here, to limit their access to their liege lords, who would milk them for whatever information they could, or would attempt to interfere by issuing counter orders, but lodging so many men under one roof in a residential neighborhood such as this would have raised eyebrows.

  Melita had supper waiting when the men departed for the day. “I should have known,” she said to me, shaking her head ruefully. “I should have known,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “Such a well-built, good-looking young man...”

  Boukolos chortled over his bread and olive paste. “Good-looking?” he sputtered. “You’ve never seen what a handsome fellow Alastor is under that miserable excuse for a beard.”

  “Again with the beard,” I grumbled sourly. Now was not the time to admit that I hated it, too.

  Chapter Four

  A fig tree grew outside the second-story window. It had been planted decades ago, and its roots now cracked through the pavement. When the hour was right, the moonlight cast spindly shadows like jumbled skeletons upon the wall, and the breeze rustling through the leaves took on a voice. I sometimes woke from my sleep, dagger in hand,
and peered out the narrow window to make certain it was not a man scaling the outside wall to slink into the cubicle. Reason failed me in those small hours; the window might be too small for an adult to slink through, but not so for a child, a waif of the streets instructed to cut my throat in my sleep.

  What shadows the mind could conjure when paired with the darkness, Hekate’s witching hour! Who would come here, seeking a youth and his companions in a humble lodging house, when Orestes Agamemnonides was said to be a fearsome black-bearded giant with an army at his back? Ah, but Aegisthus knew the truth, and, through him, his spies and hired killers.

  I looked again out the window, discerning nothing. No danger, no substance but the fig tree with its ripening, aromatic fruit and the boundary wall beyond. An intruder could theoretically come that way, yes, but to do it they would have to gain access to the neighbor’s property and...

  Enough! I tore myself away from the window. Paranoia was the breeding ground of a madman.

  Yet when I lay down and closed my eyes, uncertainly chased me through my dreams. I dreamt myself into confrontations with the lords, where they taunted me, and flouted my authority, and I, being suddenly paralyzed and mute, could not fight back.

  Father lurked in those shadows, too. He despised me. I became a child again under his withering scrutiny, a five-year-old in a man’s body. He banished me to the nursery, confined me to toddler’s furniture, forbade me to open my mouth, knowing my voice would be high and reedy, and would bring him shame.

  I was a mouse in the royal megaron, small enough to hide under a stone bench, dunk my whiskers in a wine cup, drown in a krater, all in that giant’s abode. A crumb of cheese was a feast, an offering table a dancing floor. And then the giant came home. I saw him stride through the doors, naked but for the fisherman’s net that draped him head to foot. Gore seeped through a hundred wounds, so his flesh glistened scarlet with his blood, and he left great smears across the painted stucco as he moved; his face was ash-white, his mouth gaping and frozen. He dragged his sword in his right hand because he no longer had the strength to wield it.