A Sea of Sorrow

by Libbie Hawker

  He turned west and threw the damp tunic back on, hating that it was sodden but knowing he couldn’t walk the place naked as he had often done on Ogygia. He thought of Calypso then. If he had been truly honorable, he would have stayed with her; he could have. She loved him. He could have made a life there with her and cast his wife and his kingdom into the fire and make hecatombs of their memory. But he knew—as he guessed Calypso also sensed—that Penelope was, had been and always would be, first in his heart.

  Ah but it was that endless search for honor that had brought him to this moment, was it not? If he had not gone raiding, had not gone grasping for more worthless glory, he could have made it home and into the arms of his wife, claimed his crown and guided his son to manhood years ago. Perhaps there was still time, he told himself. Perhaps it was not too late. Perhaps it would be as he had dreamed and Penelope would weep with joy at his arrival and take her to the bed he had carved for them so long ago.

  As long as another man hasn’t taken your crown, Athena whispered. “True enough,” he answered her aloud. “I must think this through.”

  Suddenly, it was as if his shipmate and captain, Eurylochus, stood beside him, laughing as he always did at such times: “Oh, you’ll think of something. They don’t call you ‘wily Odysseus’s for no reason.”

  But Eurylochus was gone, drowned along with the others after leaving Circe’s isle. Odysseus shook his head to rid himself of the shame and regret that clung to him like seaweed whenever he thought of the strange woman’s furious expression that moonlit night so long ago when she bade him leave. Only to lose all of his men soon after.

  It was inconceivable that he would walk these shores again without any of them. The shades of his lost comrades crowded all around him. I will honor you, he promised. But it was not yet the time for grief or for the rites of the dead. Like the warrior he was, survival came first.

  He walked for some time, hunched over and limping, taking on the aspect of a beggar. Foolish perhaps, for it was with this disguise he had tricked and delighted Penelope when first they had met. But Odysseus was honest enough with himself to allow the sentimentality of the obfuscation.

  With the coming day, he saw men at work in the fields—though to his eye, much of the land looked uncared for—as though work had only just started after a time of the ground being fallow. However, as he continued on his way, there was no mistaking the smell of pig-shit. Odysseus grinned as the old boy’s huts came into view. Eumaeus loved to talk—and Odysseus knew that all he had to do was a bit of prompting and the truth—whatever it was—would not be long in coming.

  He spied Eumaeus, lounging on the fence, watching his helpers corral the swine. The pig man looked older, Odysseus thought. Then again, so did he. Eumaeus’s dogs started barking and raising their paws onto the gate, tails wagging frantically. Of course—dogs could sniff through even the keenest disguise. He would have to act his way through it.

  “Shut up!” Eumaeus growled at the pair, swatting them away from the fence. “They’re acting up,” he said to Odysseus as he shuffled towards the gate, his head bowed.

  “Help for a beggar?” he mumbled.

  “Aye,” Eumaeus said. “You look like you’ve been through the mill.”

  “Someone on my ship offended the Earth-Shaker,” Odysseus said. “Down she went. I made it. My mates didn’t.” Always better to swathe the lies with a veneer of truth.

  Eumaeus regarded him. “Wasn’t you, was it?”

  “If it was, I reckon Poseidon would have taken me.”

  Eumaeus grunted. “Let’s get you some food, then.”

  Odysseus followed him into his hut—it hadn’t changed at all and that pleased him, this sense of unchanged permanency somehow comforting. And for once the mild tang of shit-smell had been obscured by the delicious succulence of roasted pork.

  “I roast it up in the morning and then the boys have cold pig for lunch. But…it’s hot, greasy and if I say so myself, well made. I’ve had a lot of practice,” he added, cutting large chunks from a joint and piling them onto a serving slab—which he delivered roughly.

  Not that Odysseus cared: his stomach growled and he dug into the food, mouth watering as he shoveled it in. “It’s good,” he said between chews. “You have skill.” Eumaeus didn’t respond, placing a flatbread by the serving slab and pouring wine for them both. Odysseus paused in his eating and tipped some on the floor. “For Poseidon and Athena,” he said.

  “Odd pair to hail at the same time,” Eumaeus noted and made an offering himself. “But for them both as you say.”

  “Thank you, friend,” Odysseus said. “I honor the gods and I honor guest-friendship. A man takes you into his house—you owe that man respect. Trust. And thanks.”

  Eumaeus grunted. Odysseus immediately wanted to do away with the masquerade and embrace the old boy; but the wily survivor-part, the part honed by all his long years of experience told him to keep his sword in its scabbard. Anonymity was his closest ally now.

  Odysseus continued to wolf down the excellent pork, watching under his ragged eyebrows as Eumaeus supped on his wine. Judging the moment. “Tell me of the shore that the Earth-Shaker has delivered me to,” Odysseus said. Casual. As if he didn’t really care but wanted to make some guest-friendly conversation.

  “Ithaca,” Eumaeus virtually spat the word. “This place has gone to Tartarus now,” he went on. “Used to be a haven under Odysseus. Now…” he waved a hand. “Those days are over.”

  “Who rules in Ithaca?”

  “Queen Penelope yet sits on the throne,” Eumaeus said. “But not for much longer.”

  Relief and pride flooded through him. And no little guilt. Of course she would not take another over him; Penelope had done well to keep a grip on things for so long without him but she must have had help. “There is a prince?” he probed. “Ready to take his father’s place?”

  “Would that there were.”

  The words hit Odysseus hard as a bronze blade, snuffing out the relief as though he were a man who had bested his foe on the battlefield only to have a spear thrust through his back. He struggled to keep his façade in place. “The prince is dead?”

  “No. He’s a good lad—and I love him dearly. But really, living under the shadow of a legend like Odysseus…he’s never fulfilled his potential.”

  The surprise of such a statement took him aback. “But is a son’s duty to outdo his father!”

  “Not if you’re the son of Odysseus. Tough one to follow. Without the king to guide him, he’s spent too long in the company of women—you know how they can be. Too much coddling, you see. He’s not what you’d call a leader of men. Too soft. And the suitors…some of them are tough men.”

  “Suitors?” Odysseus didn’t have to hide his confusion.

  “Sorry—I forget that you’re new to the shore. Literally,” Eumaeus gave a grim laugh and poured more wine. “You want more pork—help yourself,” he added. Odysseus did as he was told, gritting his teeth to keep himself from commanding the old boy to get on with it.

  “Where was I?” Eumaeus asked.

  “Suitors.”

  “Ah, yes…”

  Eumaeus told him then—all of it. How Penelope had had the idea of using the young princes as hostages, how well it had worked until their balls sprouted hair and they—over a hundred of them—now had designs on his wife. Worse—that men had come from overseas to vie for her hand…living off his food, fucking his slave girls, drinking his wine and using his palace as their own. As Eumaeus painted the picture, so the rage in Odysseus grew…even if Penelope remained faithful to him, he felt all the helpless anguish of the cuckold. For if men had moved into his home and lorded it over his island…what was he, then?

  “There’s only one decent one amongst them,” Eumaeus said. “Amphinomus of Megara. I hope our queen choses him. His main rivals are Antinous—a brute—and Eurymachus who fancies himself as smart as our dead king Odysseus.”

  “Odysseus isn’t dead,” Odysseus
retorted. “I’ll go to the great house and deliver the news to Penelope myself.”

  “No,” Eumaeus eyed him. “You won’t. I’ve seen too many itinerants turn up and use false news of the man to garner favour. Even now Telemachus is on a fool’s errand looking for him, spurred on by dodgy omens and desperate hope.”

  “The king of Ithaca lives, I tell you!”

  “You’re my guest-friend,” Eumaeus said. “By the gods. But don’t push it.”

  Odysseus feigned anger—and decided to test the trust he had engendered. Eumaeus feared the gods. Eumaeus counted guest-friendship a virtue—something these suitors clearly did not. “Ill-fortune brought me here, friend,” he said, rising to his feet. “But I’ll not outstay my welcome, nor would I seek to fleece a decent woman. I will present myself at the great house and offer my labor to these suitors. I have a strong back and am not without skill…”

  “Peace!” Eumaeus snapped. “I’m old. Each year that goes past, another part of the rigging that holds my temper in place frays. You too, ’eh? Don’t go to the great house, friend,” he leaned forward, all earnestness. “I judge you a good man—and the suitors are not. You get involved with those boys, it’ll end up bad for you.”

  Odysseus adopted a mollified air, but left enough reproach in his gaze to make it believable. “What am I to do then?”

  “Strong back and not without skill, turned up on my door at the whim of the Earth-Shaker?” He shrugged. “Stay here for a spell. Help out in the farm. Let’s see what winds blow after that. I’ll pay you and keep you in food. And wine,” he added, pouring another sup.

  He offered his hand: Odysseus took it—and the deal was sealed. Despite wanting to crash through the walls of his palace and reclaim what was his, he knew that this approach was smarter. He was the great tactician, after all. He needed to learn more about the lay of the land, the mood of the people. He would live as one of them, keep his head down and plot.

  He had one chance to reclaim his love and his land and he would not risk it all now to satisfy his impatience.

  Working on a pig farm was not the easiest of tasks. But Odysseus turned his hand to it with good cheer—well, he feigned good cheer at least. Inside, he seethed with anger at the news of the suitors and his lost throne. An anger that his frequent conversations with Eumaeus fed to make it as hot as a bronze forge.

  The island, he learned, once prosperous under his stewardship, was now poor. Only through the industry of women did Ithaca possess some wealth—trading tapestry for coin. No more raiding, that was for sure. The fields had been left fallow—men hardly bothering to work because the suitors were pissing away their labors. Only this Amphinomus had taken it upon himself to try to put things in order; from Eumaeus’s reports, he seemed a “decent man”. But then, men were “decent” when they wanted to get between a woman’s thighs…and take a kingdom into the bargain.

  It was becoming apparent to him that no one—outside of Eumaeus—gave a fig about Odysseus anymore. Indeed, if they did mention him, it was to curse the ill-luck he had brought the island. That his house was cursed and that perhaps—even if they were a bad lot—once Penelope had chosen one of those suitors, fortune could be regained. Each criticism, each complaint, each slight against his name pained Odysseus. Because he had never forgotten his people but his people had forgotten him. And he couldn’t even blame it on the short memories of men. He’d been gone for years.

  And though he tried to see matters from the islanders’ point of view, each criticism was still like having a brazen tipped whip score his flesh: and of course, they didn’t know the half of it. They didn’t know the things he had done and the things he had justified. Perhaps they were right—perhaps it was his fault after all.

  But for all that, he could not just slink away into the night like a whipped cur. He still had a son. And a wife. And he was still the King of Ithaca. But a man could not be a king without the support of his people.

  He had to divine a way that their negative view of him could be undone. But first he had to persuade them that Odysseus was alive…and returning to Ithaca. To do it, he had to convince Eumaeus whose word he knew was valuable to the folk of the island. So he worked on him each night at dinner, drawing the older man into his confidence, telling him tales of “Odysseus’s heroic wanderings”—with emphasis on the heroic, even veering to the mythic.

  He didn’t mention the lust-blinded misuse of Circe and how he’d justified it in his own mind, nor did he tell of the brutal, rage driven torture and murder of the Egyptian whose sheep he had stolen. Many a night he awoke, shaking off the specter of the Kyklops’s ruined face hovering over him in deathly outrage. But he’d justified that too.

  Eumaeus was obstinate, but in the end, Odysseus could tell that his gift with words was wearing the old boy down. Of course it did. After all, he could almost hear his old friend saying, they didn’t call him “wily Odysseus” for nothing.

  Such an epithet. One he had taken conceited pride in for so long. The man whose cunning had brought down mighty Troy. Now turning those skills to con a pig farmer into believing a legend of his own invention.

  Day by day, he continued his verbal siege as they worked on the farm until at last Eumaeus rose from his task and beckoned him away from the pig pen.

  “Look, Outis,” Eumaeus said, observing the unsaid pact between them. Odysseus had never given a name and Eumaeus was good enough not to probe—they’d agreed that Outis—NoOne—was a good compromise for now. And, after all—Odysseus had used it before. “I want to believe it. I do. But for years, we were long on hope and short on a king. Now—we’re short on hope and brimming with kinglets.”

  “I’m telling you,” Odysseus said, tipping back a sack of water and taking a swig. “I heard of it in Aegyptos. Odysseus lives.”

  Eumaeus grunted as was his wont and Odysseus was wise enough to leave well alone for now. However, over the coming days, he noted that the old boy was sharing his stories with passers by—and they would share the rumor with others, of that he was certain.

  Even Odysseus himself began to talk of it publically—playing his part as lowly worker to be sure, but Eumaeus was indulgent and kind enough to let him speak. His stories flew from farm to farm.

  And he was always on the look-out—Eumaeus’s place was a cross-roads of sorts, a fine seeding ground and as the story began to spread, Odysseus was seriously considering letting Eumaeus know the truth of his identity. As he mulled this over, feeding the pigs, he saw a young man approaching the farm, his gait familiar. Odysseus searched his memory, wondering if this could be one of his lost shipmates, but the lad was too young.

  It hit him then like a hammer blow to the chest: Telemachus.

  Odysseus stared at the young man he had left as a babe, open mouthed and dumbstruck as Eumaeus shoved him out of the way.

  “Get inside, boy!” Eumaeus urged the prince, propelling him towards the hut. “The rest of you,” he addressed Odysseus and the two other helpers, “take some time for yourselves. The rest of the day.” The others needed no urging and made off, leaving Odysseus standing alone.

  Do you need any more of a sign? Athena’s voice whispered in his mind. No, of course not. He sighed and clambered over the pig-sty fence and made his way to a nearby brook, washing the shit from body, scrubbing it from his feet. He dragged the knots from his hair and beard with his own hands and then, naked, he sat doing woman’s work, washing his tunic on the rocks, over and over again till it was at least free of the stench.

  Odysseus rose to his feet and hunched his shoulders so that none from afar would see the truth and made his way back to Eumaeus’s hut. He pushed the door open, bathing the room with light from the day.

  “… And he says that your father yet lives…” Eumaeus stopped mid-sentence and glared at Odysseus. “I said be off for the day.”

  “And where was I to go?” Odysseus replied in his beggar’s voice. “This has been my home these past weeks.” But his eyes were on his son. He step
ped inside and though he basked in the joy of seeing Telemachus alive, Odysseus felt it tempered with a slight disappointment because Eumaeus’s words were confirmed. He was no warrior. No leader of men. He did not exude the confident bearing of one who inspires others to follow him. To fight for him. To die for him.

  A pang of guilt spread in his chest as he acknowledged his failure: it was his fault the boy never learned to hold himself like a king.

  Telemachus looked down his nose at Odysseus. “Who’s this?”

  “He’s Outis,” Eumaeus said with a chuckle. “A good man. You can trust him.”

  “And you can trust me too,” Odysseus said in his own voice. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, straightening his back and rising to his full height. And he looked Eumaeus directly in the eye for the first time since his return.

  “By the gods,” the old man gasped. “Odysseus!” He shook his head. “But…how…”

  “By the gods indeed,” Odysseus thought quickly. “I may have a gift for mimicry, but Athena herself disguised me until I knew it was safe.” He looked at Telemachus then. “My son,” he said—embarrassed that the words caught in his throat. But he needn’t have been.

  Telemachus was up, on his feet and embracing him, tears running unchecked down his face. “My father!”

  “My son,” he rasped, humbled by the unexpected wave of emotions that stole his breath—love and guilt, shame and regret, and most surprisingly of all, hope. It wasn’t too late to father the boy. Which meant it might not be too late for Penelope to embrace him as husband either. Eumaeus rose and put his arms around them both, he too in floods of tears.

  “Now then,” he said, after they composed themselves, laughing ruefully at their display of emotion. “Tell me of your travels, son. Why did you leave Ithaca in the hands of these…suitors?” The word burned like foul wine on his tongue.

  As the prince recounted his efforts, Odysseus took stock of the lad.

  Lad.

  Another pang as he acknowledged the truth of it. Telemachus should be a man in his own right at his age, but he was clearly not. Unformed and idealistic with no real grasp of the harsh world of men. As Eumaeus had said: it was because he’d grown up around his mother. It was not Telemachus’s fault. Odysseus should have been there, guiding him. Showing him how to fight. How to steer a chariot. How to till his own lands. How to be a leader of men. But Agamemnon’s War had put a stop to all that. Agamemnon’s pride had robbed the son of the father.