A Sea of Sorrow

by Libbie Hawker

  “Kill them now, lord, while their numbers are small, or face this son of Laertes, this sacker of cities called Odysseus, later, after he has had time to renew the spears of Ithaca!”

  By the lights of heaven, child, but I had never heard so many men keep so quiet! Men who had more opinions than a graybeard has chin whiskers, and not a hint of a sound escaped from them. Not even my father, the gods bless his memory. Polyphemus simply sank back in his seat and allowed the king’s physician to see to his injuries. The king’s own eyes remained locked on the man’s blinded visage. You could see the wheels turning, the weights and the measures he used to gauge truth from falsehood being weighed against the freight of Polyphemus’s words.

  Finally, King Aeolus stood. He smoothed his robe and motioned for his sons to clear the portico. They went out among the crowd and slowly dispersed them with a quiet word. Men muttered to one another as they withdrew back the way they’d come. Back to the nets and the hull scrapers. The king came close to the still-seated Polyphemus. “Will you accept the hospitality of my household, for as long as you might wish to stay?”

  “I will, lord, if you will consider my warning and pledge not to treat with these Achaean dogs.”

  “Your warning I will take to heart, good Polyphemus, but I can offer no such pledge.”

  Polyphemus’s lips curled in a sneer. “You would welcome these murderers as friends, then? Even after my testimony?”

  The exodus from the palace grounds stopped; men turned to listen to this exchange. I was close by, ready to give my arm to the blinded giant. Our king was a mild man, who ruled the lands of the Aeolians less as its tyrant and more as our patriarch. But even he was not accustomed to having his motives questioned. Still, he smiled through his anger and kept the heat from his voice.

  “If I had had your testimony a fortnight ago, things would be different,” he said. “Alas, though, I am only hearing of this now, and after the fact.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A fortnight gone, as we celebrated the Noumenia—the festival of the New Moon—an Achaean came to my door and demanded xenia for himself and his comrades. He was filthy and disheveled, and I took pity upon him. His captain came after, a man much as you described, and I discovered to my joy that I played host to a hero of Troy and a brother king—Lord Odysseus, Laertes’s son, of Ithaca.”

  Polyphemus groaned. His limbs trembled; in truth, dear Eirene, I feared he might die of terror where he sat. Our good king, though, quickly crouched and took his long-fingered hand in his own.

  “They are gone from here, friend Polyphemus,” he said. “Do not fret. They partook of my hospitality for a week, replenished their stores even as they ate and drank their fill from my own larder. Odysseus paid for it all with a multitude of stories. He told us of the stratagem of the wooden horse to defeat the walls of Troy, of the death of noble Achilles, and of the storms that blew them into our waters. His tales were as smooth as a fine wine. But always there was a hint of something just under the surface—something sour, but too subtle to the palate to call it a bald-faced lie. Now I know.”

  “You need not pander to me, lord,” Polyphemus said. The king straightened.

  “I do not pander. Odysseus and his men left at dawn, two days past. I made them many gifts upon their departure, including lending them my own son, Hippotas, who has forgotten more of the navigator’s art than most men will ever know. It is his task to guide them on to Ithaca.” Blind Polyphemus only nodded. “I will pray to my gods for his safe return.”

  “And I will pray to mine, lord,” Polyphemus said, a light breeze stirring a slow dirge from the Etesian chimes, a paean to Discord. “I will pray to mine.”

  * * *

  4

  * * *

  That night, King Aeolus feasted his guest. We were invited, my father and I, along with other prominent men from the harbor. The king’s sons were there, along with a few dozen merchants from the Agora and landsmen from beyond the walls of Aeolia; an envoy of the Tyrrhenians sat nearby, a long-haired rogue clad in scarlet and cream, armed with a quick and infectious laugh. Across the table perched his dour Sikelian counterpart, a landed man from Panormos with beetled brows and thunderous eyes—both wanted something from the king, though I never learned what that might be.

  Ah, child…that you should have lived in such times! The Aeolus of my youth was not a parsimonious king like his current namesake, but neither was he a spendthrift. He was a scrupulous host. If he pledged to entertain you for the evening, he made sure you went to your bed exhausted with food and drink. Nor did he stoop to the salaciousness tittle that passes for entertainment these days. No mere dancing girls and whores! No, he welcomed rhapsodes and philosophers to his board, but also footloose explorers and fortune-hunters—men of diverse parts who shared tales of far climes, and whose daring escapades were the stuff of legend.

  This night, as mild as any I could remember, the king convened his symposium beneath the smoky rafters of an inner portico, overlooking one of the many gardens that the palace then boasted. It was a rare sight, dear Eirene: lamps wrought of gilded copper and bronze dripped pale golden light while braziers of old iron spewed a pleasant haze of sweet smoke into the air. Unseen, the Etesian chimes sang of their own accord, a never-ending chorus of soft silver notes directed by the god of the Four Winds.

  And the food! Groaning tables of it—all manner of meat and bread, vegetables and sweetmeats, cheeses and stews. The king himself gave me a honeyed date rolled in sesame that was the most sublime thing to have ever passed my lips. I have never tasted its equal. He made me another gift, as well. A silver bracelet, its ends capped by carved rams’ heads. Yes, the very same one your mother wears. When King Aeolus placed that upon my arm I thought my father would burst from pride.

  “You did a fine thing, son of Lykaon,” he said to me, as the collected guests rapped their cups against the wooden tables. “A fine thing, indeed.” I did not tell him of the god’s influence, of the divine hand that moved me, for I did not want him to think me mad or brimming with hubris.

  As for the evening’s guest of note, Polyphemus sat largely to himself. He ate sparingly and drank more water than wine. He was civil toward the king, and polite to the balance of the assembly, but he remained subdued as the night wore on. Some years later, after we had heard part of the song composed by that poet from Ionia—the one where Polyphemus was a monstrous son of Poseidon who trapped Odysseus and ate four of his crew—my father told me that the king and most of the assembled men of Aeolia believed Polyphemus had brought his ills upon himself; they believed the gods had punished him for his lack of piety. Xenia is a sacred act, and no matter how rude a stranger might be, if he asks for hospitality it is wise to try and honor it in good faith. His argument that hospitality was not demanded by the gods in his land, my father held forth as an exemplar of hubris. “It is demanded by the gods of this land,” he would say, “and he should have known better of it.”

  But I was just a boy, and I had a boy’s fervor, bolstered by three cups of well-watered wine, so I took it upon myself—as his guest-friend, of course—to draw the sullen giant into conversation. Without asking his leave, I sat myself next to him and began nattering away about the particulars of my life, expounding on my child’s view of the world as though I knew anything about the tragedies and travails that awaited my coming of age. And I asked him questions about his own upbringing, about the land of his birth and the cause of his exile. And Polyphemus, ever gracious, answered them without actually giving an answer. Try as I might, I could not pry any details from him. Exasperated, I sank back in my seat and admired the king’s gift, once more.

  Suddenly, blind Polyphemus stiffened. He bolted upright in his chair, his head tilted at an odd angle as though something in one of the dozens of simultaneous conversations going on around us had caught his ear.

  “Are you ill, sir?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

  “There is a woman, I think,” he replied, no
dding across the portico. “Yonder. Can you see her?”

  I stood and peered in the direction indicated. Indeed, I saw a woman: one of the king’s many servants—‘slaves’ would have been a more accurate term, but I was too young to realize it. I nodded. “I can see her.”

  “Does she have skin like mine?”

  I looked again. “Not so dark, but she is not an Aeolian, nor an Achaean. She might be Phoenician?”

  Polyphemus gave a half-smile. “Her accent is of my homeland. Can you fetch her to me, son of Lykaon?”

  That he could hear one voice through the babble of half-a-hundred others was a marvel in itself; I was too young to ask myself why he desired to have this woman brought to him, and being eager to please, I patted his hand in fellowship ere haring off through the crowd of dinner guests. Men I did not know, who were deep in their cups, bellowed my name or thumped my shoulder as I passed, as though I were some tow-headed touchstone of good luck. I passed my father, who debated good-naturedly with both the king and the Tyrrhenian envoy; all three men winked and smiled at me as I threaded my way across the portico.

  The woman—she couldn’t have been more than ten years my senior, if even that—leaned against a column, talking with the Sikelian envoy. She laughed at something he’d said, and then added her own comment. I heard a hint of the same accent I’d heard in Polyphemus’s voice; she was dark-skinned, though, as I said, not so dark as he, with sharp features and hair so straight and black it looked like a curtain cut from the fabric of Night. And like stars in Night’s curtain, small silver spangles threaded through her tresses caught and reflected the soft light of the lamps. I think back, now, and I recall two things: her kohl-rimmed eyes were as black as pitch, and they lacked even the slightest flicker of warmth. Zeus’s tender mercies, child, but she looked at me as I approached like I was naught but a walking pile of dog-shit, waiting to insinuate myself onto the bottom of her sandal.

  Still, I did not shirk my duty to my guest-friend.

  “Madam,” I said, giving her and her companion a curt nod—the greeting of equals. “My friend, the king’s guest, would like a word with you.” She looked over my head, her eyes narrowing, and said nothing. The Sikelian envoy, however, gave a bark of laughter.

  “Get off, you little panderer,” he said. “Galatea’s busy with me!” He made to rap me across the mouth with the hairy knuckles of his fist but the woman stayed his hand. I did not know it, as I had no understanding of the word “panderer”, but to utter such a thing to a son of Lykaon was a deadly insult. The harsh tone in his voice drew scowls from nearby benches; if he’d succeeded in laying a hand on me, drawn knives would have replaced drawn brows, and that ignorant Sikelian wretch likely would have ended up bleeding like a suckling pig. What? No, child. It was not so much that they would have protected me, but rather the good name of your great-grandfather. The House of Glaukos has deep roots among the folk of Aeolia’s harbor-town; most of the men nearby were my kin. And none of them held the Sikelians in high regard.

  But, all that is mere speculation. The woman, Galatea (why these foreign women insist on adopting local names is beyond me), read the lay of the land like a general on the battlefield; she knew the accounting, saw the promise of bloodshed in men’s eyes, and brought the Sikelian to heel with a sharp word. “I will be back. Later, we will finish this,” she said to him, then fixed her uncanny gaze on me. “Take me to this guest of the king.”

  I did not presume to take her hand, but trusted her to follow me back to Polyphemus’s side. As we neared, before I could so much as open my mouth to stumble over introductions, he tilted his head and said something to her in the tongue of their homeland. By that age, besides the Aeolian dialect of Achaean that was my mother tongue, I had a smattering of Phoenician and could muddle through Sikelian. The language of Aegyptos, however, was an inscrutable mystery, and remains such even now. It is a sibilant tongue, child, like the cough and hiss of snakes, and it carries on its back the freight of ages.

  She was a hard one, this Galatea; hard as bronze plate. But whatever Polyphemus said to her struck with the impact of a physical blow. Near as I can reckon—and this is with the wisdom of my years to draw upon—what happened next was some manner of verbal duel, with words serving as spears. Galatea, her heart one with the savage Amazons, found her footing and struck back; though I could not fathom the words, her tone nevertheless dripped venom. I expected to see my guest-friend deflate beneath such a withering tirade. But Polyphemus merely gave a low chuckle, sloughing off whatever condemnation she’d flung at him, and launched into a devastating riposte. His words hammered at her; they did not rise in volume. No, just the opposite. Polyphemus’s voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. He stood, his titanic height adding to the weight of whatever it was he said to her.

  Galatea cracked. She sniffed and looked about her, refusing to meet Polyphemus’s eyeless gaze. For his part, he stood as motionless as the granite statues of his homeland. Finally, she barked an assent, which brought a slow nod from my friend. One more muttered exchange passed between them before Polyphemus resumed his seat and took a long draught of wine.

  Galatea eyed me; in her gaze was the specter of a slow death. “Ere long,” she said, and I found myself flinching away from the suppressed violence in her tone. “Ere long, the Venerable One, our friend, will excuse himself. You know the Well of Geryon, out past the harbor?” I nodded; often, I would steal away to Geryon’s Well to partake of the sweet water that flowed from it, which was said to have revived mighty Herakles, himself. “Good. Take him there, and do not dawdle!”

  With another soft curse, Galatea whirled and strode from the portico, the embroidered hem of her long skirt flaring out behind her. All that was missing, child, was an ominous crack of thunder with each retreating step.

  Polyphemus seemed well-pleased with himself. He finished his wine and dabbed at his lips with a linen cloth. He reminded me, then, of a cat—sleeking its whiskers after gnawing the head off some luckless mouse. “Shall we, young Glaukos?”

  Polyphemus stood and made his obeisance to the king. He cited weariness, the pain of his injuries, and a black mood, all, as reasons to withdraw from such convivial company. King Aeolus took pity on him; servants, he said, would see to his sleeping quarters.

  “Thank you, lord,” Polyphemus replied. “But, with respect, I would feel more at ease sleeping as I have slept for the last twenty years: with sea foam in my nostrils and the sough and sigh of the ocean to sing me to sleep. I would sleep upon the harbor beach, if such would not offend you.”

  King Aeolus scowled; his sons muttered among the merchants and the landsmen. The fishermen, however, my father among them, nodded and murmured their encouragement. They understood precisely what the blinded titan meant: the sea was in their blood, as well. Even now, I sleep my soundest when I can hear the crash and hiss of waves, keeping time like the throbbing heart within Poseidon’s breast.

  The king’s displeasure did not last. He stood and embraced Polyphemus. “My city is yours, my friend. Rest well, but come to me upon the morrow. I would talk more with you.”

  “You have my word.” Polyphemus half turned. “Good Lykaon?”

  “I am here, Kyklops,” my father replied. So long have they called him ‘Kyklops’ that the habit was nigh unbreakable. Polyphemus did not seem to mind. “With your permission, I would ask young Glaukos to see me safely to my perch, this night.”

  My father nodded. “He is sure-footed and knows those beaches well. I trust he will not lead you astray.”

  Except, I wasn’t meant to lead him to the beaches, but rather to the Well of Geryon. I started to pipe up, but Polyphemus’s long, iron-hard fingers dug into my shoulder. “I expect he will be in his bed and sound asleep ere you set your course for home, good sir.” And, amid a chorus of farewells, Polyphemus steered me around until my wits recovered enough for me to guide him from the portico.

  “But Geryon’s Well is far from the beaches of the harbor,” I whis
pered, confused by what had just happened. “My father, at least, should know—”

  “Nothing!”

  I admit the harshness Polyphemus ladled into that one word raised goose-flesh down my spine. My resolve, what strength the god left in me, melted; suddenly, I felt like a sneak-thief, creeping through the night on some errand not fit for the clean light of day.

  Polyphemus did not relent. “Tell your father nothing,” he hissed. “Tell the king nothing! Take me to this Well, son of Lykaon, and then take yourself home. The business I have this night is not for the eyes of any simple Achaean, much less a boy!”

  I should tell you, daughter of my daughter, how I did my duty and delivered friend Polyphemus into the hands of the hard-eyed Galatea at the Well of Geryon. I should tell you, then, how I bid him farewell and made my way home, to a ready bed and a restful night’s sleep—or what remained of the night, at any rate. These things I should tell you. But, alas, I cannot. It would be a tissue of lies.

  Oh, aye. I should have done those things. But mischief is the currency of the young, and Pandora’s affliction has ever kept itself hard by my shadow. As we descended from the acropolis in silence, I felt the hand of a different god run its fingers down my knobby spine. Dolos, who is Guile, planted a seed of an idea in the rich loam of my imagination. Curiosity gave it nourishment, and it flowered into childish bravado. Mere Achaean? For all that he was my guest-friend, I would show this foreigner what it meant to be a man of Aeolia. We were not mere Achaeans!

  The city, at that hour, was nigh upon deserted. A few stray dogs, a drunken sailor lying in a pool of his own vomit, a sad-eyed midwife carrying a bundled still birth to its final resting place beyond the city’s boundaries—these were the only folk abroad. The moon headed into the west, chasing the sun into the watery unknown beyond the Pillars of Herakles and the mighty river Oceanus; even so, its light was plenty for me to steer by. We went as quickly as I dared, and before the end of the hour I had us skirting a grove sacred to Poseidon so we might come upon the Well unseen.