Beware of Greeks

by Peter Tonkin

  Once again, the passages which he led me along fell into a simple pattern in my mind, and I was by no means surprised to find that they lead to the megaron or main hall. Here there was also feasting in progress – something I had divined some way back because of the odour of roasting goat which hung so fragrantly on the still passage air and the diffuse rumble of many overlapping conversations that accompanied it. The three kings, their senior advisors and retainers were gathered round a long board lined with platters piled with olives, eggs, cheeses, carrots and cucumbers. This table stood along one wall of Peleus’ great hall or megaron with its ornate floor and ceiling, its painted walls depicting scenes from a boar-hunt and colourful columns standing at the corners of a great square opening above the blazing circle of the central fire-pit.

  As well as the fragrant goat, there was a dolphin being cooked over the fire. Slaves were moving to and fro between the diners and the cooking fire, serving King Peleus and his guests with slices of steaming meat, reaching across at their direction to add eggs, olives, cheeses or vegetables to the flat loaves and terracotta plates before them. Yet more were circulating assiduously with amphorae of wine and water. ‘Ah,’ said Odysseus, looking up, ‘here he is at last.’ He moved slightly to reveal an empty place at the table beside him. I hesitated, until King Peleus himself gestured at the vacant seat. ‘It’s the rhapsode’s place, reserved for you. Please be seated.’ My hesitation gave me the chance to make one simple observation before the King spoke. There were no women at the table, or indeed anywhere in the room—only men.

  ‘After you have eaten and drunk, you may sing for your supper,’ said Odysseus. He shot a meaningful glance across the table at Nestor and, as I sat, sipped water and nibbled a slice of goat with a small cucumber and an olive or two, all-but overcome by the company in which I found myself. I was racking my brains to think of a song that would not be guaranteed to call forth a story from Nestor after the first line or so but Odysseus interrupted my chain of thought almost immediately. ‘It’s lucky we had you aboard,’ he said in a tone so innocent that it should have aroused my suspicions immediately, ‘King Peleus was just explaining that his rhapsode is away at present.’

  ‘It is an honour to be asked to perform before such a company,’ I said, too preoccupied to register his tone or his speaking look.

  ‘Don’t be shy, boy,’ said King Peleus. ‘You’ll be lucky to outshine Dion my rhapsode, but you can try. You’ll be better than nothing at least’

  I’m sure he meant the words kindly but of course they simply made me more nervous still. I felt Odysseus stir at the rhapsode’s name, however, and caught up with his thinking then. Dion. It looked like we knew who the corpse in the little store room was. Where he had come from, therefore, and where he was going to when he met his end. Another step or two, perhaps, along the road of logic towards the unmasking of his murderer.

  After the feasting was finished, the drinking continued. There was a strange air of freedom about it all, as though the king and his courtiers were children released from school; or as though the didaskalos schoolmaster with his cutting words and stinging birch rods was away for the moment. It infected their guests. The conversation grew increasingly loud as it flowed this way and that.

  ‘And your son, Prince Achilles?’ asked Odysseus. ‘Is he not joining us?’

  ‘He’s away,’ answered Peleus. ‘Both Achilles and his companion Patroclus son of Menoetius, King of Opus.’

  ‘Both Prince Achilles and Prince Patroclus are away?’ wondered Odysseus as though he did not fully understand.

  ‘Patroclus is no longer a prince,’ snapped Peleus, his tongue loosened perhaps, by the wine. ‘He lost his right to that title along with the love of his father and the respect of his people when he committed murder.’

  ‘Murder?’ wondered Odysseus. ‘He committed murder and yet you allow him to be companion to your son? Are you not worried?’

  There was a moment’s silence, then Peleus gave a dry laugh that sounded to me like the rattling of long dead bones. ‘There is nothing to fear. Achilles can take care of himself better than any man in Greece. Better, perhaps, than any man alive.’

  ii

  ‘Achilles and his companion have returned to our old didaskolos Chiron on Mount Pelion, perhaps?’ probed Odysseus, who, like Peleus and many other aristocrats. had been tutored by the wise old scholar at one time or another. He did not ask for any details about who Patroclus had murdered, when or where, suggesting to me that he already knew the facts of the matter and was hunting different game.

  ‘Perhaps. Chiron is always busy teaching someone something.’ Peleus was abrupt; making no secret of the fact that he was unhappy to be discussing the subject of his son and his murderous companion. His abruptness almost concealed the fact that he was also being suspiciously evasive. Had he not been our host and a widely respected monarch, I might almost have thought he was lying. ‘Perhaps it is time for the rhapsode…’ he continued.

  But this time it was King Nestor who interrupted him. ‘And the queen? Is the lovely Queen Thetis not to join us?’

  ‘The Queen is of the old school,’ prevaricated Peleus. ‘She and the women eat when we men are finished.’

  ‘Her women,’ probed Odysseus once more with a shake of his head denoting his surprise. ‘I have seen neither Queen Thetis nor her handmaidens. Not a woman in the place, unlike in the town itself. No wives to your courtiers, slaves, servants or chambermaids. Are you telling me that you have built women’s quarters since I last visited, so that you can hide your women all away in the eastern fashion like King Lycomedes does on Skyros? You’ll be telling me you’ve set up a harem like King Priam in Troy next!’

  ‘No, no,’ answered Peleus uneasily. ‘Queen Thetis is also away. On a visit. Her most immediate companions are with her.’ He took a deep breath Just for a moment I founmd mysef wondering whether the air of freedom pervading the megaron had anything to do with the fact that Queen Thetis was absent. But King Peleus overrode such thoughts at once. ‘Enough of this,’ he said. ‘I will hear your rhapsode singing now.’

  And that was that.

  Or it would have been had not Lord Hypatios returned at that moment. As I eased myself off my chair and began to cross the room to the rhapsode’s stool which stood in its traditional place beside the fire pit, I observed Hypatios out of the corner of my least damaged eye. He walked purposefully along the table until he was standing beside the king. He leaned forward and whispered at some length into the king’s ear. After a while, King Peleus raised his right hand a finger’s length off the table. It was a tiny gesture but it stopped all movement and conversation in the room. ‘I asked Lord Hypatios to look at the body King Odysseus so bravely rescued from the grip of Poseidon,’ he said. ‘I admit I was worried that it might be my rhapsode Dion who I sent as embassy to King Lycomedes of Skyros. I am assured, however, that he is not Dion but a stranger. He has never been a member of my court. Never, as far as Lord Hypatios knows, even been a visitor here.’

  Peleus paused to look around the room. He straightened. His shoulders squared. A subtle but impressive change came over him. His gaze was suddenly that of a legendary king and hero. He was for a heartbeat the fabled hero Peleus, son of Aeacus—the deadly warrior who, with his elder brother Telemon, had helped crew the Argo, had hunted the Calydonian boar in Hercules’ absence, who had murdered his own half-brother Phokos and his father-in-law Eurytion, causing the suicide of his first wife, and slaughtered the hated Queen Astydamea of Iolcos by chopping her into pieces and marching his army between her scattered limbs to conquer and sack her country. ‘It is time to hear the rhapsode sing,’ he snapped.

  I limped on across to the rhapsode’s stool and sat there, pulled my lyre from its bag and settled it on my lap, wedging it in place with the club of my left arm, taking firm hold with my left hand. I ran the fingers of my right hand over the strings, unnaturally aware of the calluses on my fingertips and along the side of my thumb. Fighting against
a shiver as I compared myself unsettlingly with the dead rhapsode in the tiny room far below. My audience quietened expectantly. The last face I saw before I closed my eyes to aid my memory, was Nestor’s. I imagined him to be preparing yet another reminiscence likely to be fatal to whatever I tried to sing. I took a breath and sent a swift prayer to Apollo, god of poetry and song, that I had outfoxed the old man and would manage to keep a high dam standing in front of the overwhelming flood of his recollections.

  ‘You lower gods, served by the numberless host of the dead,’ I sang, ‘into whose greedy coffers is paid the golden soul of every man that dies upon the earth; you whose fields are bordered by the pale streams of the intertwining River Styx, unfold for me now the mysteries of your sacred tales and the secrets of your world so far beneath the world of living men...’

  ‘Good choice of song,’ said Odysseus later, when the song was over—the applause had died, the feast was breaking up, and the guests were being led towards their sleeping-quarters while the first of the women of Queen Thetis’ court came in to have their supper and tidy up after us. ‘I don’t think King Nestor has ever sat silent for so long. Pretty apt in subject matter too, given our current mission. Just think how easy it would be if you really could get down to the banks of the River Styx and talk to the spirits of the dead on the other side. If we could do that, we’d find out whether our murdered corpse really is Dion in spite of what King Peleus and Lord Hypatios say. And who stabbed him in the back. All in a couple of heartbeats. Not that the dead have heartbeats—or hearts, I suppose.’ He shrugged, then he winked. ‘In the meantime, we’ll just have to use our ingenuity. And maybe a bit of logic.’

  He paused in the doorway looking back as the women silently filed in and their female slaves got ready to serve them with the parts of the goat and the dolphin that the men had not consumed. At least there were fresh eggs, cheese, olives and cucumbers, I noticed. ‘Is this usual?’ I asked quietly. ‘I have only seen separation such as this in the cities of the east.’

  ‘It certainly isn’t an Achaean tradition,’ he answered, but his tone was distracted. ‘They’ll be wearing veils next!’ Abruptly he left me and crossed decisively to the table where a small group of women were gathered around one particular companion. This was a woman who appeared to be of middle age. She was dressed in dark robes in contrast to those of her companions. Odysseus exchanged a word or two with her then returned to me, frowning. ‘That is Evadne,’ he said abruptly. ‘Wife to the rhapsode Dion. I asked her to describe him to me as I don’t remember him from previous visits here myself. Hard to be certain about our corpse, in any case—not with half his face gone. Perhaps only a wife or mother would recognise him now.’ He lapsed into silence as he led me out into the palace’s passageways and through to the bed chamber he had been assigned. ‘I’ve asked for a spare pallet to be put in my chamber tonight,’ he said. ‘You’ll be sleeping on that. We’ll have work to do before dawn.’

  ***

  ‘Time to be up and about, boy.’

  I opened my eyes and could just make out the figure of Odysseus towering by my bed, shielding the flame of a lamp he was holding. There was sufficient light for him to cast an enormous shadow on the wall and ceiling behind him. I pushed aside the cloak I was using as a blanket, rolled over and began pulling myself to my feet. ‘Where are we going, Captain?’ I asked.

  ‘Exploring,’ he answered. ‘I want to test some of the things King Peleus said at dinner. I’m pretty certain he was being deceitful. I just don’t know how much deceit was involved and about what.’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘And I want you there to protect me if he was lying about Queen Thetis being away and we suddenly bump into the old gorgon.’

  ‘Is she really that frightening?’ I asked as I stood up and adjusted my tunic.

  ‘Let’s hope you never find out,’ he answered in a cheerful whisper as he turned to lead me out of the doorway.

  We were housed in the main palace, in rooms only slightly less sumptuous than the king’s. ‘These rooms probably belong to senior courtiers such as Hypatios,’ said Odysseus as we crept along the passageway between them. ‘They’ll have been demoted to make room for us and their underlings will consequently have moved down too. Probably to the rooms along that corridor you have already described to me, which they’ll share with the attendants Nestor and I brought with us. We’ll have to move like ghosts and pray they sleep like the dead.’ He paused, then added in a pensive whisper, ‘I’m surprised Peleus managed to get them ready in time, though. It’s as though he was expecting us. And we didn’t send word ahead on purpose. We didn’t want the old king to have time to prepare…’

  ‘Sleeping arrangements?’ I suggested when his voice tailed off.

  ‘That and much more,’ he answered. Then he was in motion again.

  It was precisely as he said, I thought. The rooms along the passage I had seen earlier were obviously for visitors’ personal retainers and lesser courtiers. Our crewmen would be sleeping aboard the ship or in a camp on the beach beside her. Having committed the layout of the upper palace to my memory, I had little trouble in guiding the captain out to the courtyard. We met no-one on the way, but as soon as we stepped out into the moonlit space, a couple of sleepy guards stationed by the main gate turned and looked at us suspiciously. Odysseus allowed the brightness from the lamp to light his features and the guards nodded in recognition, turning back to their other duties. ‘Notoriety can sometimes be useful,’ he said and handed the lamp over to me. ‘Lead on.’

  In fact I didn’t need the lamp after we had crossed the courtyard, for the passageway down which I had followed the rhapsode’s corpse was dimly lit by occasional, guttering torches. I handed the lamp back. Captain Odysseus took it and providentially left it alight. We proceeded as quietly as possible, therefore, staying as clear of the doorways into the sleeping chambers as we could and hesitating at the junction of each side-tunnel, his hand on my shoulder, until he was certain that no-one else was coming our way. We went on tip-toe, though to be fair we could have marched down the corridor leading a phalanx of Myrmidons and the noise would still have been covered by the storm of snoring we were creeping through.

  As we eased forward from shadow to shadow, Captain Odysseus gave every appearance of being calm and confident, attributes I would have given anything to share. My chest was pounding as though there was an animal in there trying to escape. Soon I was gasping as though I had run from Marathon to Athens. My skin was oozing moisture almost as liberally as that of the dead rhapsode when the captain first laid him on the deck. The flashes round the edges of my vision were all too easily misinterpreted as the torches and lamps of guards coming to arrest us. I was so taken with this idea that at the crucial moment I failed to discriminate between what was happening behind my eyes and what was happening down the last of the side tunnels. Odysseus’ fist closed on my shoulder almost painfully. He swept me by main force across the corridor and into the nearest room. As the Fates would have it, this was one of the store rooms, a convenient place for us to hide as the captain peeped round the edge of the door-jamb to see who was creeping along the tunnel towards us.

  After a moment, a hunched and cloaked figure emerged, carrying a lamp which was shaded by one hand so closely that the palm must be blistering with the heat. The captain nodded silently as though he had expected to see what he was seeing—as he probably had. We watched as the figure crept along the corridor towards the store-room where the body lay. Odysseus tensed to step out of the doorway but before he could actually move forward, he stopped again and stepped back instead, pushing me into the darkest corner. He stood in front of me, his hand as close to the lamp’s flame as the hunched stranger’s had been. I did not have to wait long before I understood his sudden reversal. Two more figures strode past the doorway, one of them carrying a flaming torch rather than a puny lamp. Whoever they were, these men were not concerned about being discovered. They were not concerned about being followed either, as we discovered
when we craned round the edge of the doorway then stepped back out into the corridor a safe distance behind their backs.

  ‘That’s Lord Hypatios with the torch,’ breathed Odysseus. ‘And that’s King Peleus with him. Just as I expected.’

  iii

  ‘But you said it wasn’t him! You lied!’ The voice echoed out into the corridor where Odysseus and I were standing. The words were spoken in a woman’s voice; low—almost a whisper—but throbbing with outrage and grief.

  Although the woman was speaking in low tones, Lord Hypatios nevertheless snarled, ‘Be quiet! Someone will hear!’

  ‘You lied!’ repeated the woman in a voice that was indeed quieter, but no less outraged.

  ‘Evadne,’ said King Peleus, unexpectedly softly. ‘Lord Hypatios did not lie. He whispered the truth to me. It was I who lied.’ His confession should have enraged the woman further, but the tone of his admission seemed to soothe her. And it was the king who had lied, after all.

  ‘You lied, Majesty? But why?’ there was genuine shock in her voice now.

  ‘You must see,’ he continued overriding her question, ‘how careful we must be. Especially with yet more of the High King’s emissaries here. Agamemnon is a suspicious man, quick to take offence and slow to forgive anything he believes to be an insult or a betrayal. If he suspected for a moment that secret messages were circulating in the face of his call to arms, that there are plans being prepared to hide from him the soldiers he wants to lead on his mad enterprise…’

  ‘At the very least,’ soothed Hypatios, ‘it would be a distraction from the more important task the Fates have given us: to find and punish whoever did this to Dion.’