Homer was not a small man, yet his grip was curiously light. A silk scarf would have weighed more heavily on my arm. Bent with age, he was not much shorter than I. He could have been a warrior in his younger days—broad shouldered and brash. Still, if I’d closed my eyes, I might have forgotten he was there at all. I matched his creeping pace as we pushed through the arch into the mottled shade of the garden. In the center stood a pear tree, and beside that, a stone fountain that filled the air with a sound like rain.
“There now,” he said once we had settled on a bench beneath the tree. Its swaying branches dappled the soft grass at our feet. The breeze carried the scent of saffron and aloe. It was a comfortable place, and I felt at ease.
“There now,” he said again, leaning his head back so the light warmed his face. “Long-suffering Odysseus, forgive me for asking so much so soon. You must understand that I have been waiting to meet you for so long that the temptation to pry was overwhelming. Tell me whatever you like, and keep the rest to yourself. But do me the favor of holding to the truth, won’t you? I’ve had a lifetime of fiction already.”
I looked across at the old man and scratched the scar on my leg. He was like a child, the way he sat in the sunlight, hands folded quietly in his lap, more like a son than a father. And there was an innocence about him, yet also a certain gravity. I was drawn to him by both. What harm could the truth do? I thought. My lies hadn’t been working out so well anyway.
So I did something I’d never done before: I told the truth to a stranger. Not all of it, but enough to give Homer something to think on. I told him about Troy and its aftermath. I told him about my long journey back to Ithaca and its many perils. I told him how, after all that thrill and horror, the comforts of home just were not enough to still my fighter’s heart. Then I told him how I set sail to find the edge of the world. I told him of my greatest and final voyage beyond the discoveries of men and into the depths of the storm that swallowed my ship. And I told him how the Armored Goddess had given me my charge. And the more I told him, the more I wanted to tell—as though all that truth had been caged inside of me like so many wild birds.
Who knows how long we sat there side by side on that stone bench—I, the seasoned warrior, bowed down with grief; he, the blind bard, brightened by age and wisdom. “In the end, I have to admit that . . . I did get a few things wrong. I . . . have regrets.”
Homer nodded slowly. “Knowing that is half your battle, I suspect.”
“Do you think?”
He nodded again.
“Well, it doesn’t bring much comfort.”
“Battle never does.”
“I’ve never had regrets before. Why should I have them now?”
“Because you’re a better man now.”
“So being better means feeling worse.”
“No, being better means seeing things as they are. How you feel depends on what you see. The truth isn’t always a comfort, Odysseus.”
I had to think about that for a moment. “So is this why I can’t lie?”
Homer smiled wryly. “The moment you met me, you lied.”
“But I did a bad job of it.”
“And you think that’s regrettable?”
“I think it’s a weakness. I think I spent my life perfecting this particular skill, and if I don’t get back into practice, I’m likely to find myself naked before my enemies. I think I have a talent for that one and only thing, and if it is lost to me, then I’ve lost my very self. Aiki! If I am not the Master of Plots and Schemes, then who am I? Forgotten. Worse than forgotten. I am nobody.”
Homer turned to me with a pained smile. “The irony of those words is not lost on me, Odysseus. You were ‘Nobody’ in the Cyclops’ cave, as I recall, and that worked out quite well. Perhaps you might have spared yourself some grief if you had been content to stay nobody a while longer.”
I shook my head.
He continued, “If lying were your only talent, you’d be as boring as you are bad. It wasn’t your lies that made you famous, it was your creativity, your resilience, your genius for inventing and solving riddles. Your lies made you infamous, Odysseus; it was your wit that made you famous. I think you will be a greater hero when you learn to distinguish your lies from your self—and a greater a hero still when you learn to be nobody again.”
“I won’t feel much like a hero one way or the other.”
“And perhaps you won’t need to feel like a hero once you really are one.”
There was a strong ring of truth to Homer’s words. But there was also something about them that set me on edge. It seemed to me that he was asking something of me, but either I couldn’t or didn’t want to understand. Whatever the case, that serenity I had felt when I first sat down with him melted away, leaving only a bitter residue of regret. I wished I hadn’t told him as much as I had, and it annoyed me that he’d seen through me so easily. I stood up. “For someone who prattles on as much as you do, you don’t actually have much to say.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“If you know so much truth, tell me why the gods sent me here.”
Homer shook his head. “No man can give meaning to another man’s path.”
“But you can try,” I answered.
“Even if I were foolish enough to hazard a guess, it could do nothing but harm. An error would lead you astray, and a truth would deprive you of its discovery.”
“So you have nothing to offer?”
“All my earthly life I wandered from one place to another, seeking knowledge, asking questions. Like you, Odysseus, I questioned men and gods alike. I doubted them all, disputed them all. I have spent my afterlife in the same manner. But the more questions I answer, the more questions arise.” He let out a long, slow breath and refolded his hands in his lap. “I am beginning to think that one measures one’s progress not in answers but in the quality of one’s questions. Yet know this, Odysseus: you are here for a reason. There is a god behind all this, I think, and he is not so fickle as we once believed.”
“Not so fickle? The goddess said she wanted me to make my way to the bottom of the Underworld—but she didn’t tell me how to get there or what to do once I arrived. She told me she needed a general, but she didn’t tell me why. She told me I needed to use eight arrows, but she gave me only seven. That doesn’t sound fickle to you? Why not just tell me what she wants?”
“Freedom,” he said. “I should think it has something to do with that.”
I groaned. “More empty words.”
Homer nodded. “I suppose so. The more I speak, the less confidence I have in words. Silence is where the real truth is to be found.”
“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” I said, and rose to leave.
“Odysseus, wait.”
I stopped.
“I do have one piece of good news for you.”
“Speak it, then.”
“Penelope,” he said. “She is with us.”
The name itself tore the breath from my chest.
“Your son is with us too. Like us, they listen and wait. And while I may not have the answers you long for, Odysseus, I can assure you of this much: your wife and son are part of what you seek. They must be. If a god has led you to us, it would be with them in mind.”
I spoke to him without looking up. “Take me to them.”
“Amphinomos knows the way,” he answered. “He will lead you there.”
I walked back to the archway.
“Odysseus,” Homer called after me. “Send Diomedes to me.”
“He won’t come. I know him. When I tell him where I’m going, he’ll want to find his wife too.”
Homer shook his head. “She is not with us.”
“He may want to look for her anyway.”
When I reentered the palace, Diomedes was exactly where I had left him. A few quiet conversations had resumed among the audience while I’d been away, but they ceased the moment I reappeared. “He wants to speak with you now,” I said as I walked
past. “Wait for me here. I am going to see Penelope.”
Diomedes caught me by the arm. “Did he mention . . . you know . . .”
I grimaced and shook my head. How well I knew him! “Sorry, old horse. Aegialia is not here.”
Diomedes smiled sadly. “Greet Penelope on my behalf.”
“I will,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.
Sure enough, Amphinomos was sitting on the front steps when I emerged. “Your wife, then,” he said as he rose.
I nodded.
Together, Amphinomos and I climbed back down the marble steps of Homer’s palace and made our way through the crowd of onlookers and into a maze of side streets. This we followed for some time before it opened onto a road paved with sandstone and bordered on either side by magnificent palaces of painted cedar and glass. I was dizzied by the riot of noise that met us on this wide avenue, but the diversion was short-lived, for we soon cut off again into another network of back lanes and alleyways. Every so often, we would make an abrupt turn and find ourselves among completely new surroundings. The road would dissolve into sand or dirt, then harden into stone again or brick. And the architecture shifted with such suddenness that I began to wonder if I weren’t imagining the entire thing. We’d pass through shacks of mud and straw populated by little people with almond eyes, then turn a corner and find ourselves surrounded by towering mountains of metal and glass from which armies of men issued ceaselessly—men of enormous girth and height, pale as corpses and clad from neck to toe in stiff layers of dark silk.
Anxious as I was to see my wife, I couldn’t help stopping to wonder at the variety of peoples that inhabited these structures. Wherever the streets crossed, men stood in groups talking and laughing—men with skin as dark as polished cedar and others with skin so pale you could see through to the veins beneath. There were men dressed in linen tunics like mine, and others who wore elaborate costumes of silk or wool. There were men with eyes like slivers of bright glass whose faces were painted with intricate designs, and men who wore jewels dangling from their ears. All of these seemed to mix as though such marvelous costumes were a matter of course. But most surprising of all were the women, who stood among the men conversing as equals, often unveiled; some of them wore trousers like barbarians, while others were dressed in magnificent brocaded gowns of pearl and gold. And everywhere, the sound of laughter filled the air.
Over time, however, the architecture took a more familiar form, and the language about me rang with a timbre that fell more gently on the ear. The very air and light felt more Greek to me, and for the first time, I noticed the smell of the place—a smell of fennel and roasted lamb, which wafted through the streets like a gift of the gods. It was that smell more than anything that turned my thoughts back to Penelope. It had often met me at the door of my home.
But just then, a voice boomed in my ear. “Aegialia?”
I gave a start and swung my arm up, catching the giant under his chin. “You!” I exclaimed, once I’d recovered from the shock. “I didn’t know you were behind me.”
“I am,” he answered, taking a timid step back.
I shook my head and set off after Amphinomos, who had not spoken, slowed down, or even looked at me since we left the stoa.
Again, the giant’s voice sounded at my shoulder. “Who is this Aegialia?”
“So now you want to talk. Why do you care who she is?”
The giant didn’t answer. Indeed, he seemed to be asking himself the same question. At length he spoke again. “I do not know why I care. The name seemed . . . important . . . to your friend.”
“Well, come on, then. I’ll tell you while we catch up with our guide.”
The giant’s sudden concern for Diomedes’ personal life struck me as odd, but it also struck me as a good opportunity to connect with our otherwise unsociable guide. We started off again, and as we pushed our way through the bustling streets of Limbo, I told the giant the story of Aegialia’s treachery.
“She was a beautiful woman—dark eyed, shapely, and lithe as a Cretan dancer. She was very, very clever. Skilled at the loom. Elegant and refined. Quick in the arts of conversation and charm. I think there was probably no cleverer woman in all Greece. To put it simply, she was a poor match for Diomedes, who was always mistaking her cleverness for duplicity.”
I looked up over my shoulder at the giant, who was bent double in his concern to catch every word. Again, I wondered at this sudden interest but decided I was likely to learn more by finishing the story than by questioning his motives.
“The marriage was one of political expedience. Her father and brother had died in the siege of Thebes, and Diomedes needed to secure his claim to the throne of Argos. To make matters worse, she was in love, even then, with a much younger man, a certain Cometes, whose father, Sthenelos, was one of the three Argive kings. Her marriage to Diomedes was uneasy from the start—shot through with mutual suspicion and contempt—yet my friend felt duty bound to love her, and so he did. He was nothing if not dutiful. And how could he not love her, really? She was so clever.
“Aegialia, on the other hand, felt cheated by the marriage. Diomedes seemed foolish and naive to her—clumsy, dense. ‘He has all the wit of the Minotaur,’ I once heard her say, ‘but he lacks the one characteristic in which I might actually take pleasure.’
“Diomedes had hardly boarded his ship for Troy when she renewed her relations with the Son of Sthenelos. Then a rumor reached her that Diomedes was bringing home a second wife (quite false, I assure you), and at her invitation, the adulterer himself moved in, securing possession not only of Diomedes’ wife but of his lands and title as well. When my friend at last arrived home from the war, there was little he could do but keep sailing. Cometes had the weight of all Argos behind him.
“I learned this many years later when I finally made it back to Greece; I had troubles of my own at home, and by then, Diomedes was long gone, so I let my disapproval be known, but there was little I could do.”
As I finished my story, we entered a part of the city that looked Hellenic, though the homes were of more delicate workmanship than those of the Greeks. Somewhat taller than my contemporaries, the people wore tunics in the Greek style, with long cloaks of white wool slung over their shoulders.
Amphinomos had slowed down to hear my story but had drawn apart toward its end and resumed his sullen demeanor. Now he hung his head as he walked, shaking it from time to time. He wasn’t a bad man, I thought to myself. Never had been. He hadn’t really deserved to die with the other suitors. A little fist of guilt opened and closed in my chest.
“Amphinomos,” I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He cringed, and I withdrew my hand. “What is wrong?”
“I’m dead.”
“Well, yes,” I answered. “This is Hades, after all. You’re dead. I’m dead. We’re all dead. But look around: blue skies and a fair breeze—grass, trees, laughter, friends . . . What more could you want?”
Amphinomos opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a band of rowdy children who ran laughing and screaming between us. Upon seeing me, however, the youngest stopped, dropped his hands to his sides, and regarded me with mute suspicion. He examined me from toe to head and moved out of my way only when I drew close enough to touch him. Then he ran stumblingly after his peers, shouting a phrase I did not understand. “Vivit! Vivit! Ecce, amici! Venite! Homo vivans!”
The scene attracted some attention, and a few groups stopped their conversations to watch us pass. Up to that point it was only my bow that seemed to interest them. Now they were watching me.
Even so, I was keen to hear Amphinomos’ answer, and accustomed by now to being stared at. “Son of Nisos,” I said, “is your life here really so terrible?”
He frowned and pursed his lips. “Listen to me, Laertides. The citizens of Limbo touch, but we do not feel. We eat, but we do not taste. It is a peaceful existence but not a joyful one. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“You wi
ll.”
I would have questioned him further, but he halted.
“What now?” I asked, annoyed.
“Now, your wife,” he replied, gesturing across the street to a great hall of stone and cedar.
CHAPTER 11
THE SECOND ARROW
THE HALL HAD the twin pillars and the double doors of an Argive palace. The roof was shingled, and the walls were made of cut stone. It reminded me so much of my own home, I half expected my dog to come bounding out at the sound of my voice. Amphinomos pointed to the door without looking at me and said, “I won’t open it for you.” He walked off a few steps and settled on his haunches, picking up a piece of broken pottery, which he examined with feigned interest. The giant looked awkwardly about, then wandered over and crouched down beside him.
I examined the doors top to bottom. They did resemble mine in Ithaca—not imposing, perhaps, but impressive enough for the palace of a minor island king. I gave a tentative push, and both doors swung inward, creaking on their ash-wood hinges. For the second time in as many hours, I felt the wind leave my lungs. This hall wasn’t just like my house. It was my house. The jars of oil along the far wall, the wooden trough at the door for washing hands and feet, the frescoes of dolphins and dancers that decorated the inner court—all were exactly as I had left them three thousand years before.
I might have stood for ages just looking in. The vision through the doorway of my own home took me with such force, I could hardly find the strength to move. Instead, I leaned against the doorpost, praying that it was not a dream, and when at last I found the strength to enter, I did so very slowly, touching the walls to be sure they were really there. I wanted to cry, but the power to do so had left me. The very shadows reached out like loved ones, and the stone-warm air stroked my face. I heard a gull’s hoarse cackle. The smell of oregano and wild sage drifted on the breeze. Two more steps were all I could manage. Then, dropping my helmet and shield, I sat down heavily on the floor and found the strength to weep.
A great wave of melancholy washed over me, then a deep—though vague—sense of regret, and a new emotion that I did not immediately recognize, like shame or gratitude or both. At any rate, I felt a keen awareness of my own unworthiness—a sudden realization that there were men in Greece who deserved this home more than I did, men who were faithful to their wives and truthful with their sons.
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