After the obligatory ten counts, Agelaos freed himself and clambered to his feet, shaking his head.
“I didn’t say ‘Throw yerself on the ground at his feet’, boy,” barked the sergeant.
“Yes, sir, but you said–”
“Tear his bloody arms off if you must.”
A small crowd began to gather.
“Y-yes, s-sir,” stammered Agelaos.
This time Agelaos was a little more cautious. For a moment the two boys circled each other, reaching out as they tried to snatch a shoulder or an arm. Then Odysseus took a step back, looking concerned, and let one arm drop a fraction. Once more Agelaos took the bait and this time Odysseus let himself fall backwards, rolling at the last to twist Agelaos under him. As they fell he’d grabbed Agelaos’s right leg and in the confusion he managed to jam it hard against the boy’s left shoulder. Ten more counts, with Agelaos’s free leg flailing round in the dust, unable to find a purchase.
Two throws were enough to win the bout. But then, Agelaos had thought this was going to be a walkover, hadn’t he? Odysseus stood up and held out a helpful-looking hand. Agelaos grabbed it, smiling, only to find himself hurtling head first across the dusty ground to land on his back with a thump against the far wall. Odysseus raced after him and had him pinned before he could get his breath back. Three out of three.
There was a burst of cheering and the sergeant gave Odysseus a grudging nod. “Done, are yer?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“And you lot,” roared the sergeant at the motley cluster of groomsmen, mucking-out boys, armourers and general passers-by. “Off my parade ground with yer. Make me happy – jump over a cliff, fall down a well, make friends with a man-eating pig. But not here.”
Chapter Eight
Odysseus put the canvas bundle on the ground and kneeled down to unroll it. Ten days had gone by since his first arms training session with Menelaos, every one of them busy and many of them memorable, not always for reasons he would want to share with his father. And now with training over for the morning, the boys had gathered, sweaty and eager, on the edge of the exercise ground to see what he had brought.
“At last.” Menelaos turned to the other boys. “Olli made a dagger last winter. He’s been promising me he’d show it to us for days.”
“Did you make this?” One of the boys eased the long blade from its scabbard.
“Not the casting. That came from my father’s smithy,” said Odysseus, “but I hammered and ground it to an edge sharp enough to shave my forearm.”
“Didn’t you make the handgrip too?” said Menelaos. “And the scabbard?”
“Yes.” Odysseus took back the dagger and sliced it through the air.
“What are the two hollows for, beside the centre ridge?” asked another boy.
“Blood channels.”
“Blood,” said Menelaos, as though it were gold, or friendship. “And you’ve used it?”
“Of course,” said Odysseus. “I wear it when we’re travelling. It’s excellent at close quarters.” He nodded solemnly as though he’d plunged it into living flesh any number of times. Maybe these boys might even believe he had. “This winter I’ll make a proper sword.”
Agelaos frowned. “I can’t see why. Doesn’t your father own any bronze smiths?”
“Of course,” said Odysseus. “Though they’re freemen, not slaves. Ithakan armourers are the best in Greece. But if I don’t know their work, how can I supervise them when I’m king?”
Agelaos tilted his nose in disdain. “In Mykenai they’re supervised by clerks.”
“We all know how skilled clerks are at bronze smithing.” Odysseus laughed. “And what about new ideas, when they come?”
“New ideas are unnecessary and dangerous,” Agelaos insisted. “That’s what my father says. The great heroes lived in a golden age. Who are we to alter their ways?”
That sounded like a direct quote. Odysseus could just picture Agelaos’s father, dressed in gorgeous robes, seated in his inlaid ebony chair, fondling a golden goblet and mouthing platitudes to his son.
That was the trouble with these Mykenaians. They’d been too prosperous for too long – hundreds of years, some said. So they expected everything to go on as it always had. But the rest of the world was changing. Weapons for instance. “You explain that to an Etruscan pirate who’s trying to run you through with a sword twice as long as yours,” he said.
“Well, you shoot him before he closes in.”
“And if he’s already boarded your ship and he’s breathing bad Etruscan cooking in your face?” said Odysseus.
“Ships!” said Agelaos. “I thought we were talking about real warfare. Chariots.”
“How do you think Mykenai became so rich? No ships and you’d all still be herding goats.”
Menelaos stretched out on the hot tiles of the stable roof, picking shreds of sunburned skin off his nose. He and Odysseus had tried several other afternoon hiding places, and this was easily the best. Above them the sky arched wide, like a lapis lazuli ocean of air. Across the deep ravine of the Chavos River, the rocks wavered in the heat as though they were evaporating into a shimmering mist. Below, he could hear a chorus of rumbles and snorts as the royal stablehands took their siesta, stretched out in the straw next to the horses. “What now?” he said.
Odysseus ate the last of a pile of dried figs they’d wheedled out of the kitchen maids. “We could climb down to the river,” he said, pausing to dislodge a seed from a back tooth. “I’ll teach you to swim.”
“Not enough water. Wait till I visit you on Ithaka. Mmm, what a nice bracelet you have on.” He’d spun a few lies to explain why he wasn’t wearing it any more – thank blessed Hera that old Nurse wasn’t close by to translate them into something worth a thrashing. “I’ll win it back from you, see if I don’t. How good are you at, er, let’s see. Not wrestling, not archery … rat hunting, perhaps?” He slapped at a drowsy midge. “Oh, and I told my brother Agamemnon about your dagger last night.”
“That I made it? What did he say?”
Menelaos hesitated, torn between loyalty to his friend and admiration for his older brother. Agamemnon’s reply had been a bit blunt. “Don’t expect conventional behaviour from the Ithakans,” were his actual words. But Olli might take that the wrong way. “Agamemnon thinks Ithakans are quite extraordinary,” he said at last. “Full of surprises.” He hid a smile – he’d negotiated that one rather well. “And then he suggested we visit someone called Palamedes. He’s only a clerk but Agamemnon thinks you’re sure to like him. He’s clever; he invents things.”
“Palamedes?” Odysseus tried rubbing fig syrup off his hands onto the tiles, gave up and licked his fingers clean instead. “I think I’ve heard Father mention him. Your uncle, Gelanor, has developed the habit of stopping at our room for a cup of wine on his way to bed. I remember them talking about Palamedes the other night. Where can we find him?”
“Agamemnon says he has a workshop above the south road, next to the lead foundry.”
Odysseus jogged up the steep path beside the foundry and followed Menelaos as he turned into a narrow cul-de-sac. Menelaos knocked as hard as he could on the solid wooden door at the end. A few leaves skittered against the walls of the alley, breaking the still silence that hung, hot and heavy, over the sleeping hillside.
Odysseus put his ear to the door. “There’s no one here,” he said. “And there’s a clay seal near the edge of the door but not over it. Covering a keyhole, perhaps?”
“So it’s locked. What could there be in there?” Menelaos said. “Gold?”
“Or ideas. Much more interesting.” Odysseus ran his fingertips over the surface of the half-dried clay. “How extraordinary.”
“What is?”
“The seal. Look.”
Menelaos peered at the tiny image stamped into the clay. “So? It’s a lion killing a deer.”
“But the lion’s eyes are wild, almost mad.”
“He’s digging hi
s teeth into the deer’s back. My eyes would bulge too.”
“I’d like to see you try. But that’s not my point – he’s murderous, lethal. And see how the deer throws her head back. You can almost smell her fear.”
Menelaos sniffed. “It smells like damp clay to me.”
“Slugwit. It’s wonderful work, that’s what I’m saying.”
“No, no. I mean, yes, you’re right, it’s clever. You can even see the hairs on its mane. Er, the lion’s, that is. Not the deer’s.”
“You marsh mule.” Odysseus rolled his eyes. Was Menelaos serious? Sometimes it was hard to tell. Mind, sounding like a fool might be useful in Mykenai if you wanted to live a long time. If you were the younger brother of the future High King, you might find yourself tangled in a lot of unwanted trouble if you seemed too intelligent.
Menelaos shrugged and grinned. “Marsh mule yourself,” he said. He opened his mouth to say more when footsteps sounded behind them and they swung round.
“By Hades, what devilry’s this?” A skinny young man stood blocking the alleyway, his acned face blotched with anger. He took a step forwards, his jaw jutting. “What in all filth are you up to?”
“Nothing, sir,” said Menelaos.
“Nothing? You’re trying to break down the door. I’ll have you whipped for this.”
Odysseus squared his shoulders. “No, in truth, sir. We were admiring the seal.”
“Admiring the seal?” Palamedes twisted his face into a sneer. “Do you think I’m an utter fool? You were prising it off. I saw you. Lying little whelp.”
“No, really. We’d c-come to visit you,” stuttered Menelaos. “We’d heard so much about you and–”
“Decided to rob me.”
“No. I swear, it’s the truth. My friend says there’s nothing in there worth stealing.”
Palamedes went an even darker shade of red. “So you thought you’d break in and amuse yourselves, destroy my worthless possessions, eh? I’m to be humiliated by a pair of ignoramuses too young and stupid even to blow their own noses.”
Menelaos started forwards. Odysseus seized his elbow and wrenched him back. “Look, you probably don’t know who we are,” he said. “This is–”
“I know only too well.” Palamedes’s lip curled. “Menelaos. A whoreson, a fraudling creeping out from behind the women’s skirts. And as for you …” He sneered down at Odysseus. “The son of a rag-tail ruler come hunting for scraps from the High King’s table.” His voice raised itself half an octave and lodged in his nose. “Little Oudeis-seus, little nobody, little cock-a-hoop, squawking and flapping in a better man’s dust.”
There was a stunned silence. Then Menelaos charged at him, fists flailing. Odysseus knew in an instant what this would mean – more trouble than they’d faced ever before. Father would … No, it didn’t bear thinking of. And Menelaos? He’d be sent back to the women at the very least.
He grabbed Menelaos by the neck of his tunic. “No,” he shouted. “We’ll not waste our punches on a shoddy, trumped-up clerk.” He shoved Palamedes hard in the chest with his free hand, knocking him against the wall, and propelled Menelaos into the gap. The two boys sped off down the alley, Palamedes’s insults burning in their ears.
Chapter Nine
“But why?” said Odysseus. “What had we done to him?”
Laertes rested his chin on his hand. “You must have provoked him in some way, Olli.”
“But we didn’t do anything. Truly, Father.”
“Oh dear.” Gelanor had called in once again for a late night draught. Now, he sat back in his chair, stroking the rim of his wine cup. “Palamedes is a most unfortunate young man. Thanks to his father, Nauplios, the lad has been spoiled for mere cleric work. Educated in every possible way, taken out hunting, trained as a warrior – it seems no parent has ever looked on a more perfect child.”
“That doesn’t sound very unfortunate to me,” said Eurybates, filling Gelanor’s cup.
“Thank you, Eury. But, as you may well know, Nauplios’s prospects were sadly altered, all those years ago.” Gelanor paused to sip his wine. “Palamedes’s future is not what it might have been. I could feel quite sorry for him if he didn’t make it so difficult to like him at all.”
Odysseus gripped the edge of his stool. No, he didn’t know. What prospects? And Gelanor hadn’t really answered his question. “You’d have thought,” he said, “from the way he spoke to us, he was a king and we were peasants or slaves.”
Gelanor took another sip. “King? Well, there is some royal blood there, albeit from the wrong side of the sheets.” He smiled into his wine.
Laertes echoed the smile. “No harm in that.”
Odysseus gave the two men a surreptitious glance from under his fringe. That, presumably, was a reference to Gelanor being a bastard. Did that mean Palamedes was a bastard too? So why would he go out of his way to call Menelaos a whoreson?
“Oh, there’s harm enough,” said Gelanor. “His mother’s connections will prevent any great promotion. And I’ve heard the young man feels her absence keenly.”
“How many years is it now,” said Laertes, “since Nauplios sent his wife away?”
“Since … but no, this is not something we should be discussing.”
Wife? Odysseus stared at his feet, his mind in a tumble. If Nauplios was Palamedes’s father and his mother was Nauplios’s wife, then Palamedes couldn’t be a bastard. The whole conversation was utterly confusing.
“Is Palamedes jealous?” said Eurybates, seemingly as puzzled as Odysseus felt. “After all, Olli, you’ll be king of Ithaka one day.”
“Unless,” and Gelanor gave Laertes a sly wink, “you’re caught climbing round on my brother’s roof again. But Palamedes, alas, has no chance of such a future.”
“But that doesn’t explain,” Odysseus persisted, “why he thought we were stealing from him.”
Gelanor gave him a considered look. “An interesting point, Olli. Perhaps because he has already been robbed.” His lips twitched in a smile. “Not long ago he built a tilted writing desk. The design was so clever, Nauplios presented the desk to Atreus as a gift. Atreus was so delighted, he ordered my old enemy, Sipylos, to commission one of similar design for every clerk in Mykenai.”
Odysseus bit his lip. Gelanor was full of such stories. Was there a point to this one?
Laertes guffawed. “That wouldn’t have gone down well with our high-and-mighty Head of Internal Palace Affairs.”
“It did not. Sipylos hates any kind of interference but he couldn’t countermand Atreus. So he told everyone he’d designed the desk himself.”
“The whole palace must know Sipylos is lying,” said Eurybates.
“Of course they do. But they also know he has outmanoeuvred Palamedes. They’re far more impressed by that. Palamedes is furious and I don’t blame him.”
That might explain part of it. “But Palamedes called Menelaos a whoreson,” cried Odysseus. “He should be punished.”
“Did he mean it?” asked Eurybates. “Perhaps it was just an insult, like calling someone a bastard because he dropped something on your toe.”
“No, I’m afraid he intended it.” Gelanor sighed. “Poor, dear Aerope.”
“Poor, dead Aerope,” said Laertes.
“Yes.” Gelanor swirled the remaining wine round in his cup. “Menelaos’s mother has very few champions in Mykenai. And mentioning Palamedes’s unfortunate remark to Atreus, reminding the High King of Queen Aerope at all, would reopen a Pandora’s box of trouble. It would set him thinking again how she died.”
Now the truth was coming out, the secrets lurking behind all those sideways glances and veiled voices. Odysseus sat very still, hoping not to distract Gelanor from his tale.
“No, not to be contemplated.” Laertes frowned. “And there’s–”
Gelanor held up a warning hand. “It would be very bad for Menelaos. This is exactly the problem we were trying to avoid by keeping the lad hidden with the women.”
�
��So that was quite deliberate?” Laertes leaned forwards. “When I heard his age, I assumed he’d been forgotten.”
“No, not forgotten.” Gelanor paused to empty his cup.
“But why, sir?” asked Odysseus. “What did Queen Aerope do? How did she die?”
“Hush.” Gelanor nodded his head at the open window and cupped his ear, eyebrows raised. The silence in the room was broken only by the shuffle of footsteps in the courtyard below.
“I’ll tell you some day,” murmured Laertes. “When you’re older. But not now. And not here.”
Chapter Ten
The road sliced round the hillside, dissecting the last of the winter snow that lay, crusty and hard, in the folds and hollows of the slope. The first spring flowers were forcing their way through the yellowed mats of flattened grass, the sun was shining and high above them a skylark soared. Menelaos stood tall on the woven leather straps of the chariot floor, breathing in the best smell in the whole world, horse sweat tinged with a whiff of dung. Up ahead, his brother Agamemnon rode in the foremost chariot, black-haired and broad-shouldered, his boar’s tusk helmet dazzling white in the morning sun. Two other chariots followed close behind, and beyond them again jogged enough men-at-arms to advertise that this was no ordinary travelling party, but an expedition of considerable importance.
Determined not to grip the light wickerwork sides like a child, Menelaos rested his hands on his hips, letting his knees take up the jolts and twists of the ride. He glanced sideways at his spear resting easy in the holster on the side of the chariot, ready to hand. Here he was, the second son of Atreus the High King, embarking on an overseas mission with his older brother. He had already tried pinching himself, a little too hard in fact, and the bruise on his arm assured him this was not a dream.
“How soon will we see the sea?” he asked.
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