by Glyn Iliffe
Strangely, Astynome did not share his anger. Rather she seemed relieved as she placed a hand on his shoulder and stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said, softly, before turning and running barefoot across the sand to where her orphans were waiting.
Eperitus looked at Odysseus, who was eyeing him with his arms folded.
‘Say it then,’ the king challenged, wistfully.
‘Why bother? You know exactly what I think of that farce.’
‘So what would you have me do? Execute my own cousin?’ Odysseus raised his hands in despair. ‘And you heard what Theano said: Athena has forbidden me to lay a finger on him.’
‘Then punish some of his cronies,’ Eperitus replied, trying not to raise his voice. ‘Execute the Taphian and do us both a favour! Show them you’re still the king.’
‘Execute him on what charge? Perhaps getting rid of Selagos would save me a lot of trouble, but at worst he defended his friend in a fight. I can’t kill him for that, even if I’d like to. And I am the king. I have a duty to show justice. When I corrupt that justice to satisfy a friend’s anger – even if it’s righteous – then I give up my privilege as king.’
‘Kingship isn’t earned, it’s a birthright.’
‘Say you, the son of a king slayer!’ Odysseus snapped. ‘You, more than most, should know how easy it is to topple a ruler. I’m flesh and blood, too. All I need to do is make a few bad decisions to get myself stabbed in the dark, or, worse still, strung up by a mob of my unhappy subjects. And what if I hadn’t burst in and stopped you from cutting Eurylochus’s throat? What would you have thought of the king’s justice then, if I’d been forced to execute you for murder? I’m just thankful to the gods that we sighted land when we did and it stayed your hand long enough for me to reach you. Now, whether I’ve earned your loyalty or you just respect my birthright, please get a few men together and go find some fresh water. The casks are almost empty.’
It did not take long to find an inland stream and replenish their supplies. As he supervised the teams of water-carriers, Eperitus looked up at the flat-topped mountains that they had first seen from the sea and wondered whether this unknown coast was inhabited. There were no dwellings or fishing boats and no land had been cleared for farming. The only smoke trails came from the Ithacans on the beach and he could not hear the telltale bleating of goats or sheep. Yet the place did not feel entirely wild. There were places along the banks of the stream where the grass had been trampled bare, and not by animals. Four large, flat stones crossed the waterbed at one point, and here and there he found what looked like olive stones in the dust, though there was no sign of an olive tree anywhere. And then there was the faint scent that suggested the presence of people. It was different to the odour of the men around him – just as the Trojans had smelled differently to the Greeks – but it was there nonetheless. He did not like the thought they were not alone, especially after their experience with the Cicones, and the sooner Eurylochus and the other two scouts returned, the sooner he would be encouraging Odysseus to set sail again.
But the three men had not returned by the time he returned to camp, so he found Astynome and sat with her orphans while she fetched some broth. They looked at him uncertainly in his leather breastplate with its many battle scars and with the short sword hanging in the scabbard at his side. They had seen enough soldiers in their short lifetimes and were most likely the children of soldiers, but in the death throes of Troy they must have witnessed what such men could do, and it left them quiet and uneasy despite his clumsy efforts to entertain them. Only when Astynome returned did they relax again, eventually accepting him into their simple, foolish games.
‘You’ll make a good father,’ Astynome said as he threw knucklebones in the sand with the oldest girl.
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? They’re terrified of me when you’re not around.’
‘All warriors scare them. If you didn’t have all that war gear on they’d have been running circles round you. And it will be different with your own children.’
He thought of Iphigenia and how she had seemed to warm to him from the start. But the memory of her just reminded him of how he had failed her. Briefly he questioned whether he had the right to bring other children into the world, then pushed the thought from his mind. Astynome would not give him a choice in the matter.
‘Duty calls, Eperitus. Odysseus wants you.’
Antiphus had appeared with his bow in his hand and his quiver slung across his shoulder. Eperitus passed the last of his broth to the smallest of the girls, who took it greedily, then, after saying farewell to Astynome, he picked up his shield and followed the archer across the beach. They found Odysseus with Polites, Omeros and Eurybates and half a dozen others, all of them except Eurybates fully armed.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing for certain,’ Odysseus answered, smiling at him as if their earlier altercation had never happened. ‘But it’s late afternoon and Eurylochus’s party haven’t returned yet. I ordered them to seek out signs of habitation and report back the moment they found anything. Either way, they should have been back by now.’
‘With Eurylochus in charge they’re probably lost.’
‘Whatever’s happened, I’m going to look for them,’ Odysseus replied. ‘Eurybates, you’re in command until we return. If we don’t find them by nightfall, we’ll make camp and continue the search at first light. Give us until noon tomorrow and then send out another search party. If they don’t find us – or don’t return themselves – then set sail without us and make it back to Ithaca as best you can.’
Eurybates nodded and said nothing. The others tightened the straps on their shields and made ready to go.
‘Wait,’ Eperitus said, signalling for Odysseus and Polites to join him. Polites’s left eye and cheek were black from his fight with Selagos, though the Taphian had received a cracked rib and lost a tooth. ‘I want Polites to stay here.’
‘I’m not staying,’ the giant warrior said with a dismissive laugh.
‘We might need him,’ Odysseus agreed.
‘I need someone to watch over Astynome. If Eurylochus comes back while we’re out looking for him, I don’t want her left with no-one to protect her. Even if he doesn’t return, I don’t trust Selagos near her. And there’s only one man in this whole camp can guard her from him.’
Polites’s eyes narrowed in thought, then he nodded.
‘You’re right. I’ll do it.’
He looked at Odysseus, who conceded with a shrug and went to join the others. Eperitus reached up and laid a hand on Polites’s shoulder.
‘This isn’t a one-time favour either. I don’t know how long it’ll be before we find our way home, but until then I need you to keep an eye on her when I’m not around. She means everything to me.’
‘She’ll be safe. I give you my word.’
He gripped Eperitus’s hand as a token of his promise, then turned and marched back down the beach.
‘I’d have let you stay behind if you’re worried about Astynome’s safety,’ Odysseus told him as he caught up with the others.
‘Of course you would,’ Eperitus said. ‘But then who would look after you?’
They followed the general direction that the scouts had taken that morning and soon picked up their trail by the wanton hacking of trees and bushes along the way. After a while Odysseus halted by a path running east to west through the scrub. No plants grew there and the ground had been smoothed by the regular passing of many feet.
‘A trail?’ Omeros suggested.
‘Looks like it,’ Odysseus said, drawing his sword. ‘We’ll follow it west towards that high ridge. Eperitus, walk with me if you will.’
The two men went side by side along the narrow track with the others behind them. Eperitus quickly picked up the distinctive scent of other people. It was the same faint odour he had noticed by the stream, though more evident. As they approached the ridge he noticed the sour ta
ng of communal latrines that marked every settlement he had ever known. But if there was a town or village over the crest of the hill, why could he not detect roast meat, baked bread, woodsmoke and the other smells that indicated the presence of man? Then he stopped and held up his hand.
‘I can hear people,’ he said. ‘Beyond the ridge.’
The Ithacans readied their weapons and advanced cautiously up the slope, preferring the cover of the scrub to the open path. There were no lookouts and soon all four men were lying on their stomachs on the top of the ridge. Below them the reverse slope fell away to an open plain with a walled town at its centre. But it was not like any other walled town Eperitus had ever seen before. There were no towers or gates, just a large gap in the eastern battlement where a gateway must once have stood. The ruined walls would only reach a man’s head at the highest points and would be little higher than his knee in others. Eperitus had seen enough sieges to know their destruction was not the result of war, which would have seen one or two breaches with the rest of the circuit more or less intact. Neither had they been brought down by one of Poseidon’s earthquakes, which left heaps of fallen masonry on either side. Instead the ramparts had been pulled down stone by stone to build the ramshackle buildings that surrounded the old town. These seemed not to have been constructed to any plan, but were more like the dens of children – idle fancies thrown together in a day’s work, with little thought for appearance or comfort. Their roofs looked to have been made from driftwood or old pieces of sail, held in place by blocks of stone. The houses inside the town walls had been properly erected but were in need of repair. Some had collapsed altogether, while most had roofs that had fallen in and been replaced with wood or canvas arrangements, similar to the hovels outside. From his vantage point on the ridge he could see a temple and a palace facing each other across an open space in the centre of the town. The temple was a roofless shell with empty plinths at the foot of its steps where the images of gods would once have stood. The palace was rectangular with an opening at its centre in which trees grew wild and unchecked. The far side of the building had collapsed, while on the near wall his keen eyes could make out the remains of flaking plaster still decorated with the faded outlines of elaborate murals. The square that separated the two buildings had once been paved with great flags of stone. These were now cracked and thick with dry grass.
He would have taken it for a city that had been deserted long years ago, were it not for the people that lined the walls and filled the doorways, or strolled through the many streets and thoroughfares that criss-crossed the town. They were dark-skinned with black hair and wore nothing but plain skirts around their waists. That was the oddest thing of all. In every town or city Eperitus had ever visited, clothing was what marked a person’s place in society: the wealthy and high-born in their brightly dyed cloaks and dresses, the jewellery glinting off the women’s necks and wrists; the warriors with their armour and the swords hanging from their sides; the craftsmen with their rough tunics and leather aprons; the slaves in their plain clothing, carrying jars of water or baskets of bread balanced on their heads. But here everyone was the same: no adornments, no tools marking their different professions, no colour – just simple skirts of grey wool. There were none of the normal sounds of a town, either – the cries of merchants selling their wares, the rumble of cartwheels straining beneath wagons loaded with goods, the lowing of cattle and the whack of the herdsmen’s sticks across their rumps. Even the children that Eperitus could see sitting among the ruins seemed quiet. Instead of the healthy sounds of an active town, all Eperitus could hear was the settled hum of voices in conversation.
‘I don’t like it,’ he told Odysseus, lying at his shoulder. ‘Something feels wrong.’
‘Something is wrong,’ Antiphus agreed. ‘There isn’t any structure. What sort of town doesn’t have soldiers to protect it? I know there’s not much to defend, but every man, woman and child here should have become the slaves of the first armed band to come across them. And where are the farmers selling their crops, or the shepherds with their flocks? Where are the smiths, the bakers, the wine merchants? That temple doesn’t look like it’s seen a sacrifice in a hundred years. And the palace! What ruler would live there? It’s not as if there aren’t enough idle hands to tidy things up.’
‘I think that’s the problem,’ Odysseus said. ‘Maybe there aren’t any rulers. Not in the way we understand them.’
‘No rulers?’ Antiphus exclaimed. ‘Everyone has rulers. If they didn’t, then somebody would put themselves in charge. It’s the way of the world.’
‘Exactly,’ Eperitus said.
He was as disturbed as Antiphus by the notion that a body of people could exist without someone governing them. Men were not like birds, flocking together and then migrating according to a collective instinct. Men needed laws and laws needed makers and upholders. Without law the world would slip into chaos, just as it was in the days before the Olympians came to power.
‘We’ll soon find out,’ Odysseus said. ‘Eurylochus and the others are in there somewhere, and we’re going to find them. But keep your weapons to hand. There’s something here I don’t understand, and that usually means trouble.’
They rejoined the path and followed it down the slope towards the town. The people outside the walls had already spotted them and were watching their approach. They did not flee in terror, but stood in groups and eyed the heavily armed newcomers with bold curiosity. A single child was sent running back to the town, which was the most activity Eperitus had observed among its strange inhabitants.
As they reached the first makeshift hovels, a woman left the group of onlookers and walked towards them. Like every other adult, she was naked to the waist and barefoot. Smiling, she indicated the way to the town and spoke a word that Eperitus did not understand. When she did not receive a response, she smiled again.
‘Welcome.’
‘You speak Greek?’ Odysseus asked.
‘Welcome,’ she repeated and again gestured him towards the town.
They carried on towards the gap in the broken walls, all the time regarded listlessly by groups of men and women from the ruins around them. The women’s eyes lingered on the Ithacans, while their men merely smiled and nodded dumbly. Several spoke words of welcome as the warriors strolled past. They seemed benign and without aggression, and yet Eperitus felt uneasy as he sensed them leaving their tumbledown homes and following in their wake.
As they entered the town they were met by another large crowd that gazed at them with languid curiosity, rather like a herd of cows. Eperitus noticed there was not a single elder among them and they were all younger than him. The realisation only increased the feeling of disquiet that had haunted him since he had first seen the town from the ridge. Then a man with oddly pale eyes and long brown hair came forward and spoke a few words in a language Eperitus did not know. Several women left the circle of onlookers and walked towards the Ithacans. One laid a hand on Eperitus’s upper arm, stroking the bulge of his muscle as she looked him in the eye.
‘Come lay with me,’ she said and tried to lead him away to a nearby house.
He pulled free of her grip and she turned in confusion to the pale-eyed man. Meanwhile, one of the other women had taken Odysseus’s hand and was guiding it towards her naked breast. He snatched it away and drove her off with a fierce stare.
‘Now I know why they don’t need an army,’ Antiphus said as another woman draped her arms over his shoulders and kissed his neck.
Behind him Omeros was being led uncertainly into the crowd by two girls.
‘Enough!’ Odysseus snapped. ‘We’re here to find Eurylochus and the others, nothing else.’
The women released their hold on the Ithacans and looked to the pale-eyed man, who waved them back and spoke once more in his unknown language. This time four men stepped forward. One took Eperitus by the hand and raised his fingers to his lips. A moment later he lay in the dust, clutching at his cheek and wailing path
etically. The others retreated back into the crowd, and the murmur of voices that had surrounded the newcomers since their entry into the town fell suddenly silent. Eperitus unclenched his fist and let his hand fall to the pommel of his sword as he looked around at the blank faces staring back at him. Odysseus, too, had slipped his fingers to the handle of his sword and was eyeing the hushed throng. Then one of the women began to laugh, pointing at the man lying on the ground and saying something in their strange, melodic language. Slowly the rest of the crowd joined in, some of them kicking dust at him as he crawled away through the wall of their legs.
‘We want to speak to your king,’ Odysseus said, raising his voice above their laughter. ‘Who is your king?’
Their mirth faded and they became docile again as they turned their eyes on Odysseus.
‘I asked you who your king is,’ he repeated.
‘We don’t understand,’ the pale-eyed man answered, staring at Odysseus with curiosity.
‘Who leads you?’
The man smiled, intrigued by the notion.
‘Why do we need to be led?’
‘Who makes your rules? Who enforces them?’ Eperitus said.
‘There are no rules. We do as we please.’
‘Rubbish. Without the rule of law there’s no cohesion, no society.’
‘We’re looking for three men,’ Odysseus interrupted. ‘Three men who dress like us. They came this way this morning. Have you seen them?’
