by Glyn Iliffe
‘My lord Aeolus, you’ve asked for news about the end of the war and I can easily give you it. After all, any man can state the outcome of an event; perhaps he can list a few names, too, before sitting back down and leaving his hosts feeling unsatisfied and only a little wiser than they were before. Reports of that kind might be fit for a commander’s tent in the middle of a battle, but not for a ruler’s palace. What, after all, is the purpose of a great hall, where men sit down to feast before a blazing hearth, surrounded by the deeds of men and gods?’ He indicated the walls with a sweep of his hand, lingering on the mural of the fortified city and the battle before its gates. ‘A place like this exists for one reason: glory. To give glory to the master of the hall by showing his wealth and power; to give glory to the gods when men honour them with sacrifices and libations; and to give glory to men whose feats are depicted in paint on the walls – and in words. So no story worth its bread or wine should start at the end. It should start at the beginning.
‘Questions have also been raised about me. Am I who I say I am: a king, trying to find his way home after ten years of war, or a wandering beggar desperate to find a generous host? Perhaps I’m both. But a great tale must have a worthy teller, so before I speak of the war, I will speak of myself. I am Odysseus, and without me there would have been no war with Troy.’
His voice was soft and melodious, audible over the crackle of the flames and the gentle notes of Omeros’s lyre – almost blending with them – but not so clear that his listeners were not forced to bend forward a little, careful not to make any other sound that might cause them to miss a word or disrupt the rhythm of his narrative. Even Eperitus, who was familiar with the magic in his friend’s voice, was rapt as Odysseus retold the story of when Laertes had been king of Ithaca and his throne threatened by the traitor Eupeithes and his Taphian mercenaries. Eperitus knew that, under Odysseus’s spell, Aeolus and his sons were seeing the Pythoness in their minds’ eyes as she riddled Odysseus’s future in her cave below Mount Parnassus; and that they were imagining themselves fighting alongside the Ithacans as they were ambushed on the way to Sparta, and again as they encountered the great serpent in the temple of Athena – though he made no mention of the appearances of the goddess herself. Nor did he confine the story to his own trials, telling how Eperitus had saved his life by claiming to have entered Penelope’s quarters when it was Odysseus himself who had risked death to see her. He described the greatest of Helen’s suitors in detail, embellishing each attribute or defect as he saw fit. He made clear the dilemma Tyndareus had created for himself: that to offer his daughter and her inheritance to one man would enrage the others and invite a bloodbath; then, after a pause in which he drained the last of his wine, he revealed his own resourcefulness in suggesting the oath that bound every suitor to the protection of Helen and her father’s choice of husband.
‘And though the scheme won me Tyndareus’s gratitude and with it the hand of Penelope, it also sealed my doom.’
With those words, Odysseus lowered himself onto his chair and slumped forward over the table, his head in his hands. Omeros’s lyre stuttered to a halt and Eperitus felt himself emerging from the enchantment of Odysseus’s words. He glanced up at the hole in the roof where the stars were visible through the wisp of smoke feeding up from the flames. He guessed that midnight had already passed, and suddenly, released from the world of twenty years before and returned untimely to the present, he realised how tired he felt.
‘What’s wrong?’ Aeolus demanded, half-indignant and half-imploring. ‘Odysseus, my friend, you must continue. Why did this oath seal your doom? What do you mean? And what about your father’s kingdom? Did you return? Of course you did – but what happened when you found your way back to Ithaca?’
‘My lord Aeolus,’ Odysseus replied, raising his head wearily, ‘I’m afraid the exhaustion of our voyage has left me drained and unable to continue. You will forgive me, I’m sure, if I beg your leave to return to my ship. I intend to sail at first light.’
‘Nonsense! Nonsense, you will stay here under my roof, you and your friends. I will send a slave to tell your men that you will sleep in the palace. And there’s no need for you to hurry off, is there? Stay another night. Let us hear the end of your story.’
Odysseus shook his head and held up a hand.
‘I can’t. My family awaits me –’
‘I insist.’
Reluctantly, Odysseus gave a nod. He stood and thanked his host with a bow, then turned and followed a waiting slave from the hall.
‘He played the old man like a lyre,’ Omeros whispered to Eperitus as they followed.
‘But to what purpose?’ Eperitus replied.
Odysseus simply smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Four
AEOLUS’S DAUGHTERS
Eperitus rolled onto his side and lazily reached out a hand, but Astynome was not there. Opening his eyes he saw a whitewashed wall and a heavy curtain, the edges of which were grey with pre-dawn light. He could hear Omeros snoring in one of the neighbouring rooms and the sounds of slaves going about their business as Aeolus’s palace roused from its slumber. At least he had not been murdered in the night, he thought to himself, before returning to a half-sleep that was only broken some time later with the arrival of Odysseus.
‘You’ve missed breakfast,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘So has Omeros, though I’ve asked Aeolus’s slaves to bring you both a little something to start the day on.’
Eperitus sat up and scruffed his hair into some semblance of its usual mess.
‘Seen anything of the old man?’
‘Aeolus? Not a thing. Nor his sons. But that’s good. I intend to use their absence to do a bit of exploring. You’re welcome to stay in bed, of course –’
Eperitus gave a dismissive snort and looked for his sword, before remembering their weapons had been taken from them the night before. He felt uncomfortably naked without it as he pulled on his sandals and unrolled his cloak, which he had used for a pillow. Throwing it over his shoulders, he followed Odysseus into the next room to wake Omeros, just as a slave arrived with freshly baked bread and a skin of water. They finished the bread quickly and, with Odysseus shouldering the water, began their exploration of the palace.
It was a plain and homely dwelling, sparsely populated with slaves and with no sign of Aeolus or his sons. Odysseus used their freedom to explore the passageways and rooms of various functions, while Eperitus instinctively gained his bearings and made note of the best escape routes, should their hosts become less than welcoming at any point. He also found himself sizing up the vantage points for any defence from within the palace and the walls without. Not that gates and battlements could withstand any attack for long without defenders to man them – and there were no fighting men other than Aeolus and his sons. They visited the stables where a dozen fine horses and two chariots were housed, then proceeded out from the open gates and down to the plain beyond. This was as empty as the evening before. A few score sheep and goats lazed about in the early morning sun, watched over by two elderly shepherds who gave surly nods in reply to Odysseus’s greetings, before moving away from the Ithacans.
They completed a half-circuit of the clifftops and reached the harbour where the fleet lay at anchor. The bay was full of men, laughing and shouting as if they were safe in their home waters. Odysseus smiled at the sight, then led his companions down the path to the beach. While the king was greeted by Eurybates and Polites, and Omeros stripped off to join Elpenor in the harbour, Eperitus sought out Astynome. He found her on the galley teaching Greek to a group of children. She brought her lesson to an early end and told her students to go and enjoy the water.
‘It’s what they wanted to do anyway,’ she explained as he told her she did not need to stop for his sake. ‘They were more interested in the sounds coming from overboard than anything I had to teach them.’
A little later they climbed the path to the cliff above and made love in a secluded hollow, under the shadow
of a lopsided oak tree. In the afternoon, as they sat on the cliff edge talking about what had happened in the Cyclops’s cave, Eperitus heard the crunch of approaching sandals and turned to see the same slave who had led them to Aeolus’s palace. He disappeared from view down the path that led to the harbour, reappearing a short time later with Odysseus and Omeros. Eperitus kissed Astynome goodbye and joined his companions as they followed the slave back to the palace.
The hearth burned low as they entered the great hall, scoring black shadows into the faces of Aeolus and his sons. But this evening there were torches in the iron brackets on the walls and columns, illuminating patches of the muralled walls and making the room feel larger. Slaves appeared with baskets of flatbread, fruit, bowls of olives and haunches of freshly cooked meat. The wine that was placed before them was sweet and warmed Eperitus’s throat as he took his first swallow.
‘Welcome, Odysseus,’ Aeolus said, reclining in his fur-draped throne and watching the Ithacan carefully from beneath his heavy eyebrows. ‘You slept well?’
‘As well as any man can sleep when he is anxious to return home and see his family.’
‘A home is something to be cherished, as are a wife and children. How many children did you say you have, Odysseus?’
‘I didn’t. The subject of my family was barely raised.’
‘You have a wife, as I recall. Penelope?’
‘And she bore me one son, Telemachus. A babe in his mother’s arms when I sailed to war, but now in his tenth year and with no memory of his father.’
‘Doubtless you will be reunited soon,’ Aeolus said. ‘A man of your resourcefulness can find the way back to Ithaca, I am certain of it. And when you are reunited with your boy the years you lost will be made up for by the tales you have to tell him. War makes a man, Odysseus, it tests his character, sifts him. We are refined by the heat of battle, are we not? And when our impurities have been purged, what is left is a man of true character.’
Or a husk, Eperitus thought to himself. It was obvious Aeolus had never fought in anything more than a skirmish, let alone had his impurities cleansed by prolonged war.
‘You are right,’ Odysseus replied. ‘I will have tales to tell that will excite and terrify him, though perhaps he will also learn there is more to a man than the ability to kill the fathers of other children. But the chariot is outpacing the team, I think, with this talk of war. When weariness overtook me last night, I’d only reached the oath that the kings of Greece took to protect Helen and her future husband. The war with Troy was another ten years away, and far from inevitable. As you will see.’
And so the story continued. Long into the night, as Omeros played on his lyre and the rest of his audience drank wine and ate, Odysseus’s voice filled the hall with stories of love and war, treachery and courage, gods and men. With his eyes fixed on Aeolus he explained how he won back Ithaca from the usurper Eupeithes and how his father gave him his throne. Knowing that his host was a man fascinated by the glory of combat, he breezed over ten years of peaceful rule and resumed with the arrival of a band of mercenaries on Kefalonia on the day his son was born. He detailed the wrestling match between Eperitus and Polites and how the giant Thessalian had agreed to join Odysseus’s royal guard.
‘Indeed, you saw the man yesterday,’ Odysseus said. ‘He was with me when you spoke to us from the clifftop.’
‘The colossus with the barrel chest and fists like boulders?’ Aeolus asked in surprise, turning his gaze on Eperitus. ‘Then you were either enormously brave or incredibly stupid to fight him, my friend. And tomorrow this man must accompany you here to the feast.’
‘Tomorrow, my lord?’ Odysseus asked. ‘But we sail in the morning.’
‘By all means, raise your sails if you wish. But without a favourable wind to fill them you will find it very hard going.’
‘Then if we stay one more day you will provide us with a favourable wind?’
Aeolus ran his fingers through his beard.
‘I won’t send a hindering one. Now, please, the story –’
Odysseus continued, painting Helen in a particularly harsh light for betraying Menelaus and running away with Paris. It was the act that required the fulfilment of the oath Odysseus had unwittingly proposed in Sparta ten years before, and which brought the independent kings of Greece together under Agamemnon. Only Achilles had failed to come, and when Odysseus described his mission to find the greatest warrior in Greece and persuade him to join Agamemnon’s army, Aeolus’s attitude changed from one of satisfied engagement to one of close attention. Even Androcles, who until that point had insisted on making the Ithacans aware of his displeasure at their presence, sat up and listened. But Achilles faded from the story again as Odysseus described the sacrifice of Iphigenia to appease the gods and win the Greeks passage to Troy. The memory provoked painful emotions in Eperitus, who finished his wine and held up his cup for more. Odysseus continued until the beaching of the first galley on the shores of Ilium, then sat down and, with a yawn, begged his hosts’ forgiveness as he was too tired to continue.
The next night Polites joined the group. Odysseus related the events of the early years of the war, and when his tiredness forced him to stop at a key point in his story, Aeolus again asked him to stay on for one more day. Once more Odysseus agreed, but only if Aeolus would promise not to hinder their passage from the island when they left. The ruler of the winds had been so pleased with Odysseus’s tale that he even offered to provide them with a favourable west wind for the first day of their voyage. And so it continued night after night, with the Ithacan king spinning out the story and growing ever larger in the estimation of his host. The feasts became richer and longer and always ended with the same ritual: Aeolus would ask Odysseus to stay another day, and the Ithacan – after a show of reluctance in his eagerness to return home – would concede in return for another favour. Sometimes the requests were small, such as asking for Eurybates to join the following night’s feast; but mostly they were more daring, such as sailing directions or a clue to the next landfall. Aeolus’s desire to hear more of Odysseus’s tale tamed his natural hostility, but Eperitus could see that Androcles grew more suspicious with each new indulgence his father gave. He had inherited Aeolus’s natural suspicion of outsiders, but this quality had not been tempered by age. Indeed, his youth sharpened it so much that there had been times when Eperitus had expected him to speak out and challenge Odysseus’s story. That he had kept his silence must have been thanks to the beguiling effect of the king’s voice.
On the night Elpenor was permitted – at Odysseus’s request – to join the ever more elaborate feasts, Eperitus was surprised to see he was not the only new guest. Seated beside Aeolus was his wife, Telepora, a plump, large-chested woman with a loud laugh. She also had an eye for the visitors, caring little that her husband was beside her as she let her gaze linger on their battle-hardened bodies. Aeolus’s six sons had also been joined by their wives, whom Aeolus explained were also their sisters. The incestuous marriages were not the only sign of their isolation on Aeolia, though. Apart from the ageing male slaves in the palace, the young women had clearly not seen other men before. If Telepora perused the Ithacans with the idle desire of a woman recalling her youth, her daughters stared at them with a lust that sought satisfaction. Eperitus was almost embarrassed by the looks he was receiving, and Polites – fearless in a battle against armed warriors – turned a deep red as Aeolus’s daughters did little to hide their admiration for his great bulk. Their husbands seemed unconcerned, making Eperitus suspect the marriages between the siblings were not monogamous, and Aeolus himself seemed to take amusement from the discomfiture of his guests. Not that some of the Ithacans seemed to care what their hosts thought: Omeros and Elpenor often returned the looks they received with smiles and winks.
Eperitus reached for a basket of bread and Odysseus leaned forward with him.
‘We need to be careful,’ Odysseus whispered. ‘I suspect Aeolus’s daughters aren’t here at t
heir father’s request.’
‘Then whose?’
‘Their husbands’, led by Androcles. He hasn’t wanted us here from the start. He believes I’m stringing the old man along –’
‘You are.’
‘…and he wants us gone. He’d prefer us dead, but won’t dare kill us while we have six hundred men waiting in the harbour. So what better way to get rid of us than if his father’s guests raped his daughters? Aeolus will throw us out if there’s even the slightest indiscretion.’
‘Shouldn’t we be looking to leave soon anyway? We’ve been here three weeks and I’m starting to wonder whether the old man is ever going to let us go.’
‘We’re only prisoners as long as I’m telling him about the war. The moment my story ends he’ll send us on our way, but before that time comes I want him to have given us the exact route home and to have promised us a favourable wind all the way back to Ithaca.’
‘And what if everything he’s told us has been a lie? I doubt he’s ever been off this island, so how can he tell us the way home?’
‘If you hadn’t fallen asleep the other night you might have heard me ask him about his own life. He wasn’t always trapped here, you know. He comes from a land far to the west, near to where the sun sets, and spent his youth travelling from one island to another. I believe he’s telling us the truth and that he knows the way back to Ithaca. I have to believe that if I’m ever to see my home again! The problem is that warriors are warriors, and if any of us touches one of his daughters he won’t just send us away without help, he’ll pursue us with a gale that will rip the sails from our masts and have us drowning beneath colossal waves. Which is exactly why Androcles brought his sisters here tonight: to seduce us and destroy any hope we have of reaching Ithaca alive. We can’t let them.’
He stuffed a piece of bread in his mouth, washed it down with a swallow of wine and stood. In an instant, the great hall fell silent but for the crackle of the hearth and the hiss of rain on the roof. Then he began his tale, recalling the night in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo when Helenus revealed the three oracles that had to be fulfilled before the walls of Troy could fall. Even Aeolus’s daughters listened as the king’s voice transported them to Pelops’s tomb. But for once the story did not end at the moment of greatest tension, with Odysseus claiming tiredness. As he described the chamber in which Pelops’s tomb lay, Dia – Androcles’s wife and the most beautiful of Aeolus’s daughters – stood and threw her arms wide in a yawn.
