by Glyn Iliffe
It was a prophecy he had lived with for half his life, and though he refused to accept that he was a prisoner to such a fate – that he was unable to pilot his own destiny – its promise of doom had always tormented him. And yet how could it come true, he asked himself. The Pythoness had said that if he went to Troy he would not see Ithaca for twenty years; against all expectation ten years had passed without sight of his home, but surely the war could not spring back into life for another decade? No, the oracle had to be false.
Then he remembered Athena.
The goddess had been his protector since boyhood, even appearing to him at times to save him from an early death or offer him guidance. But that was before he had betrayed her, stealing the sacred Palladium from her temple in direct defiance of her orders. For that she had promised him her wrath, declaring that the Pythian oracle would be played out to the full. He ran a hand through his thick hair and sighed heavily.
‘What is it?’ Eperitus asked.
Before Odysseus could answer, Agamemnon rose from his high-backed throne and strode towards his brother. Menelaus almost growled as Agamemnon thrust out his hand and seized the speaker’s staff. For a long moment the Spartan king refused to relinquish his hold, but as the clamour about them died down and the kings, princes and commanders of the Council turned their eyes on the contest of wills before them, Menelaus eased his grip and let his hand fall. With an open sneer, he returned to his seat.
‘My brother has got what he came to Troy for,’ Agamemnon announced grandly, ‘and now he wants to scuttle back to Sparta so that he can reacquaint himself with his wife. Indeed, who can blame him? Helen’s beauty is something to die for, as too many of our comrades would testify – if we could hear their voices from Hades. But in his haste Menelaus has perhaps forgotten his debt to the rest of us. After all, he isn’t the only one who was deprived of his wife for ten years – didn’t we also give up our loved ones so he could recover his? But though we’re all keen to return home, let’s not be so hasty that we leave behind a legacy for our own children to suffer from. Are we in such a hurry to depart that we will leave these mighty fortifications for a new enemy to occupy? The walls of Troy still stand,’ he reminded his audience, pointing the golden staff towards the battlements that had defied the Greeks for so long. Efforts had been made all day long to throw down the great stones that Poseidon and Apollo had placed there, but tens of thousands of men had barely succeeded in toppling their lofty parapets. ‘I say we cannot go as long as one of those stones stands upon another. My friends, wait a few more days until our job is properly finished, then we’ll take whichever route will get us back to Greece the quickest. Let us finish the war as we have fought it – together.’
A few members of the Council nodded at his words, though most of these were the weaker kings who still had something to gain from keeping Agamemnon’s favour. Others looked about doubtfully, trying to weigh what the general opinion might be. But many crossed their arms in defiance, or looked into the flames to avoid Agamemnon’s keen stare. These did not want to remain a day longer than they had to, and the first to put a voice to their collective reluctance was Diomedes.
‘Not me,’ he declared. ‘I want to go now. But if you’re so concerned, Agamemnon, why don’t you leave a garrison of Mycenaeans here?’
His words educed a mixture of agreement and denial.
‘Why should Mycenae gain from our hard work?’ demanded Little Ajax, leaping angrily up from his bench. ‘We Locrians fought as hard as anyone else. Harder than most. The last thing I want is Mycenaean strongholds on both sides of the Aegean dictating whose trade can or can’t pass.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Ajax,’ Nestor said. ‘Will you see the Greeks return to the petty squabbles and civil wars that divided us before Troy?’
‘Giving Mycenae full control of the Aegean is a sure way to start another civil war,’ called another voice.
‘There will be no garrison!’ Agamemnon shouted, raising the speaker’s staff to silence the sudden din of voices. ‘Do you think I hadn’t thought about this a long time ago? Of course I had – and division among the Greeks is one of the lesser problems it would cause. No, we must raze Troy to the ground and go home. But if all most of you care about is getting back as quickly as possible, then consider this also: if men are at the mercy of the gods on land, how much more so are we on the waves? We have yet to honour the gods fully for our victory or appease them for the temples we have destroyed. Do you think the few hasty sacrifices we offered them this morning are going to see us home safely? Do you? Then launch your galleys and see how quickly you get home, if at all! But we Mycenaeans will stay and offer proper sacrifices, and when we’re done we’ll remain until the walls of Troy are destroyed. If you have any sense then you’ll stay with us.’
This brought further squabbling from the benches, with fingers pointed and voices raised.
‘I take it you won’t wait,’ Eperitus asked, leaning in towards Odysseus.
Before Odysseus could reply, Diomedes, who had caught Eperitus’s words, swung about on his seat and faced the king of Ithaca.
‘I say we go at first light tomorrow, Odysseus. What do you say? The fleets of Argos and Ithaca together, alongside Menelaus and his Spartans. Isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for for ten years?’
Menelaus stood again and entered the circle of benches. Agamemnon tossed the speaker’s staff into the dust at his feet and returned to his chair. Not bothering to retrieve the symbol of authority, the Spartan king raised his hand and the Council fell silent.
‘Then there’s no other option: the fleet must be divided. The gods will have my sacrifices the moment I set foot on Spartan soil again, and I will make sure they receive all that’s due to them and more. But I’ll not stay in this place a day longer, for all my brother’s honeyed words. Sparta sails at dawn; who is with her?’
He extended a hand to the Council, but was met with silence. Agamemnon, reclining once more on his fur-draped throne, allowed himself a smile. Odysseus glanced at Diomedes, whose face was a torment of indecision. But Odysseus’s own hesitancy had nothing to do with the fear of offending Agamemnon, whose icy gaze swept the benches daring anyone to disagree with him. Nor was it out of a desire to appease the terrible Olympians that ruled over every aspect of a man’s life. It was to do with just one god: Athena. Did he stay and give her back the one thing he knew she wanted, or did he sail with the morning breeze that would come down from the mountains and send the Spartan fleet homeward to Greece? The anxiety tore at his insides, but for once he decided to ignore his head and follow the will of his heart. He took a deep breath and prepared to stand, but another rose to his feet before him.
The Council seemed to hold its breath as all eyes turned to the last man anyone expected to flout Agamemnon. King Nestor of Pylos, Agamemnon’s closest adviser and most loyal ally in ten years of war, looked briefly down into the Mycenaean’s shocked eyes, then across at Menelaus.
‘I will sail with you tomorrow, Menelaus. If the gods choose to punish an old man in his haste to return home, then so be it. But my men are weary for Pylos and I won’t deny them any longer.’
‘I’ll sail, too,’ Diomedes announced.
‘And me,’ said Odysseus, standing beside him.
None of the others spoke. Perhaps they believed in Agamemnon’s arguments, or perhaps they had their own reasons for not rushing home. But Odysseus did not care for them. As he and Eperitus walked back to the Ithacan galleys, where doubtless rumours of their departure had preceded them, he looked at the sun sinking into the Aegean. A third of its yellow orb had already melted into the waters and the sky above it was banded into different shades of deepening purple. As it touched the horizon, its reflection extended a golden carpet across the waves, as if inviting him to hurry back to Greece. Maybe it was a good omen, he thought. Maybe not.
Chapter Three
SELAGOS
It was still dark when the Ithacan ships were hauled down the beach
and into the great bay, where they joined the fleets of Argos, Pylos and Sparta. The moon had long since slipped beneath the Aegean but Eperitus could clearly see the hundreds of galleys heading for the mouth of the harbour, pulled gracefully forward by rows of slowly moving oars. The swish of water was accompanied by the creak of rigging and the sound of low voices uttering words of command in the darkness – distractions that Eperitus tried to filter out as he stood in the prow of the ship, focussing his senses on the quiet hulks of the fleets that were staying behind. Agamemnon and Menelaus had parted on bitter terms, leaving Eperitus with the uncomfortable suspicion that Agamemnon might try to prevent any early departure from Troy. But the hundred ships of the Mycenaean fleet were still firmly beached on the grey shore, with their cross spars stowed and their benches empty. The galleys of the other Greek nations were similarly dormant, though Eperitus watched them all closely until the last Ithacan ship had sailed into the wide strait that led to the open sea. Even then, as he turned to look at the thicket of naked masts and the broken walls of Troy looming up beyond them, he still felt as if he were attached to this place by an invisible cord that at any moment would run out of slack and jerk him and his comrades irresistibly back to Ilium.
There was a last moment of tension as they turned the spur of land dividing the harbour from the sea, then he felt the current take hold and pull the galley south towards the black hump of Tenedos. A pale outline was forming above the eastern mountains when a series of orders barked out from the ships ahead. Hundreds of grey sails unfurled in the gloom, shuddering briefly before filling out with the clean, south-westerly breeze that swept the surface of the water. The voice of Eurybates called from the stern of the ship. An instant later the sails of the Ithacan galleys were tumbling heavily down from the cross spars and billowing out as they caught the wind. A short period of activity followed while the rigging was adjusted and the pine oars were hauled in and laid down between the benches. Then there was silence as the crews returned to their seats, shook out their tired limbs and waited for dawn to arrive.
Eperitus glanced down at Astynome, asleep on a large sack of grain. She had not been woken by the activity around her, so he kissed her on the brow and left her to her slumber. The journey to the stern – where Odysseus was manning the twin steering oars – was difficult, not least because of the constant motion of the deck that would doubtless take him days to get used to. He also had to negotiate a route through the densely packed stores of food and drink that crammed the narrow space between the benches. Among the sacks of wheat and barley and the different clay pithoi of wine and water were live pigs in reed baskets, goats with their hooves bound – that bleated at him as he stepped over them – and even a bony, long-horned cow that had been coaxed onto its stomach and lashed to the deck with leather ropes. Packed amid these provisions for the voyage home was Odysseus’s share of the spoils from Troy: precious metals; reams of expensive cloth; bails of wool and other goods, all covered with leather tarps. Most numerous of all were the slaves. This human plunder was exclusively female, the men and boys having been slain on Agamemnon’s orders. Chief among them was Hecabe, King Priam’s wife, whom Odysseus had chosen to serve as a maid to Penelope. Eperitus saw her lying with the other slaves among the carefully arranged cargo, her proud status so utterly destroyed that she was now barely a shell of flesh and blood. Her mind had been emptied by grief at the loss of her husband, her many sons and the impenetrable city that had been her home. Several of the other women and young girls were disturbed by Eperitus’s clumsy progress and complained loudly. He expected to find Odysseus amused by his efforts, but the king’s face was sombre and he hardly seemed to notice his captain’s arrival. Eurybates stood close behind him, equally silent and ready to take the oars if needed.
Eperitus looked up at the long, grey clouds that barred the sky.
‘A bright day ahead, but autumn isn’t far away. All the more reason to have left when we did. And yet, even now I feel –’
‘Feel what?’ Odysseus asked, diverting his gaze briefly from the sea ahead of the galley, which was now gleaming with the first true light of dawn.
Eperitus plumped himself down on a sack of grain. ‘As if any moment now something’s going to happen to take us back. After all this time it doesn’t seem possible we’re finally heading home.’
‘I feel the same, and I know exactly why,’ Odysseus replied. ‘It’s been haunting me ever since we left the belly of the horse, the moment I knew Troy had fallen. Twenty years the Pythoness said I’d be away from Ithaca. That’s another ten years before I see my family again.’
‘But she was wrong. By all the gods, she has to be,’ Eperitus said. ‘Helen’s safe and Troy wiped out. Ithaca’s a few weeks’ voyage away at the most. There isn’t a force in the world that can put another decade between us and home.’
‘Perhaps you forget the one force you’ve just called upon: the gods. What can twelve small galleys do against the power of Zeus or Poseidon? Or Athena? You heard what she said the night we took the Palladium.’
Odysseus’s eyes burned with the certainty of his own doom as he spoke, but at the last word he seemed to check himself and turned his face back to the sea. Eperitus followed his gaze, wondering what had distracted him, but all he could see were the white sails of two hundred ships and the growing bulk of Tenedos getting ever nearer, its eastern flanks orange with the light of the rising sun. Then he noticed the sack at Odysseus’s heels. At first it looked like another bag of wheat or barley, but it was too bulky and angular for that. Leaning forward, he flipped back a corner of the rough weave before Odysseus could stop him.
It only took a fleeting glance of the blackened, misshapen object for Eperitus to recognise it. Odysseus replaced the cloth quickly and looked at Eperitus, more in guilt than anger.
‘The Palladium?’ Eperitus hissed.
Odysseus glanced across at the rowing benches where his cousin Eurylochus and three of his cronies had been casting dice. Their game forgotten, they were staring at the king and the sack by his heels. Odysseus glared at them and they returned to their game.
‘You told me the Palladium had been placed in the head of the wooden horse,’ Eperitus said in a low voice.
‘I lied. You think I’d give it back to the Trojans after the lengths I went to to steal it from them?’
The Palladium was a burnt and disfigured effigy of Pallas, whom Athena had killed in a hunting accident. It had no beauty or value, but the Trojans had cherished it more than any other treasure, for it was said Troy would not fall as long as the figure was held within its walls. Desperate to end the war and go home, Odysseus had tricked his way into the city to steal it. When Athena had appeared in her temple and ordered him not to remove it, he defied her and took it anyway.
‘You didn’t have to bring it with us! You should have burned it, or buried it, or just left it lying in the ruins. Do you think it’s going to somehow preserve you from Athena’s wrath? Do you? More likely she’ll destroy us for certain if you keep it! Throw it overboard.’
‘Never,’ Odysseus snapped. ‘I’ll take it back to Ithaca and rededicate it in a temple of my own. If I don’t do something to appease her, we’re doomed for sure.’
They had almost forgotten the presence of Eurybates, who had tried to move out of earshot of their whispers. But as the wind changed and Tenedos loomed closer, he called out for an alteration to the sail. Odysseus and Eperitus fell silent and moved apart.
‘Selagos, it’s your throw.’
Selagos was sitting on one of the rowing benches, his forearms resting on his thighs as he stared beneath his thick eyebrows at Odysseus and Eperitus, watching their whispered argument over the contents of the bag. From the moment Eperitus had foolishly revealed its contents, Selagos had forgotten the game of dice and let his thoughts trickle down through the possibilities forming in his uneducated but sharp brain. Reluctantly he turned towards his impatient comrades and looked down at the seven wooden cubes on the mat be
tween their feet.
‘Five to beat,’ Eurylochus announced.
There was a sheen of sweat on the round, pink face of Odysseus’s cousin, who licked his thick lips in anticipation as he stared at Selagos.
‘You?’ Selagos asked.
Eurylochus shook his head and nodded towards a skinny man with red-rimmed eyes, who grinned at Selagos through crooked yellow teeth. The smile quickly withered under the Taphian mercenary’s savage glare. Scooping the dice up in his broad hands, Selagos shook them once and tossed them back onto the mat.
‘Three!’ Eurylochus announced.
He pulled the matching dice aside and, picking up the remainder, placed them into Selagos’s open palm. He shook again and rolled. A moment’s silence as four pairs of eyes scanned the faces of the dice, then shouts of laughter and derision as they counted a total of six matches.
‘You win,’ Eurylochus congratulated him.
But Selagos had already forgotten the game and was frowning at the sack that contained the Palladium. He tugged at the top of his left ear, where it had been severed by a Trojan sword, then scratched at the tangled red beard that he had refused to shave when the rest of the crew had removed theirs. With the war over and the fleet sailing back to Ithaca, the time had come for him to fulfil his mission. And if he was to find an opportunity, he had to buy as much time as he could with as much disruption as possible. The unexpected presence of the Palladium had given him his first chance.
