by Iliffe, Glyn
Odysseus laughed heartily, as if he were sharing a joke with friends in the great hall back on Ithaca, not on a ship on the far side of the world. ‘I’d say Hector is the optimist if he expects to conquer Greece. If the different states can unite for the sake of a woman, however beautiful, then we can join together to repel a common enemy. But aren’t you forgetting the biggest problem of all?’
Eperitus raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
‘The oracle said I’d be twenty years away from home if I ever went to Troy,’ Odysseus continued with a wry smile. ‘Well, I’ve been to Troy now, so I’m doomed anyway. Unless,’ he added, raising a cautionary finger, ‘I can cheat destiny, like I had the chance to do ten years ago.’
‘Then we’ll both have to wait and see what happens,’ Eperitus concluded, looking at Odysseus’s smiling face and getting the distinct feeling there was something hollow about his bravado – as if, deep down, he knew he would not see his home for a very long time.
The remainder of the voyage to Greece was slow and tedious. As they retraced their route southward past Tenedos, Lesbos and Chios to Icaria, before turning west to find a passage through the Cyclades, they were beset by unseasonably rough weather. On three occasions they were unable to leave the different ports and coves where they had taken shelter the night before, not daring to risk the raging seas and blustering winds. Then, in the second week out of Troy, they made sacrifices to Poseidon and the storms eased away. Soon, a westerly wind was speeding them towards Euboea and the gathering of the Greek kings. On one occasion they were approached by pirates – who quickly turned and fled at the sight of a deck crammed with armed men – but the rest of the passage was smooth and unhindered.
Finally, three weeks after leaving Troy, they reached the island of Euboea and spent the night in the bay below Mount Ocha, where Zeus and Hera were said to have fallen in love. In the pre-dawn light of the next morning their oars were already gliding through the calm waters as the sailors took their craft out into the wide triangle of sea between Euboea and the western mainland. Before long they had picked up a mild breeze and Odysseus, leaning his weight on the twin rudders, steered them to the northern apex of the triangle, where the two opposing landmasses closed to a narrow point. By mid-morning, with the sun’s heat bearing down on them from the naked blue sky, they passed between the small islets that guarded the mouth of the straits and saw a handful of masts in the distance ahead of them, clustered near to the shore where the hills of the mainland sloped into the sea.
The sight of these ships caused an excited rush to the prow, upsetting the ship’s balance and forcing Odysseus to order his crew back to their places. For days, the conversation on the benches had been filled with speculation about which kings would answer the call to arms, and what force of men and ships they would bring with them. Now, with the first glimpse of Agamemnon’s assembly, the galley was suddenly a cacophony of competing voices. Even Odysseus could barely disguise his excitement.
‘How many can you see, Eperitus?’ he asked, squinting at the ships that were framed between the lines of the halyards and the billowing sail above.
‘Six?’
‘There’s a dozen at least,’ said Eurybates, whose sailor’s eyes were not as sharp as Eperitus’s but were more accustomed to counting ships at a distance.
‘There must be more than that!’ Menelaus exclaimed. ‘There have to be!’
‘There are,’ said Calchas, his bald pate gleaming in the sunlight as he remained sitting on the planks of the main deck. ‘Hundreds upon hundreds of them. I saw them in my dream last night.’
‘Pah!’ Menelaus sniffed. ‘You were drunk, as usual.’
But Menelaus’s distrust of Calchas – which had grown greater each time the Trojan drank himself senseless – proved to be unfounded. As they followed the curve of the coast around to the west they passed fleet after fleet, each one belonging to a different king. Some numbered just a handful, while others had as many as two or three dozen vessels; and opposite each mooring were large numbers of tents, where hundreds of soldiers stood watching the lone galley slip by. But even these were just the vanguard. Eventually, the straits closed to form a large bay where the mountainous flanks of Boetia and Euboea almost touched, their independence maintained by a narrow strip of water leading north. Here, finally, they saw the massed might of Greece.
This time even the combined voices of Odysseus and Eperitus could not drag the men back to their seats, as each warrior moved to the prow to gaze in stunned awe at the great armada before them. The whole bay was filled with warships, their black hulls anchored so closely together that a man could almost walk from one shoreline to the other.
‘Zeus’s beard,’ Menelaus whispered, his eyes filling with tears.
‘There must be hundreds of them,’ exclaimed Eurybates.
‘It’s just as I saw in my dream,’ Calchas added, standing with the others and surveying the forest of masts.
‘Look at the hillsides,’ Eperitus said. ‘All those tents. There must be thousands of soldiers up there.’
‘Tens of thousands,’ Odysseus corrected. ‘And look! There’re the dolphin sails of Ithaca. Bring in the sail!’
A great cheer greeted them as Odysseus steered the ship into a gap between the other eleven galleys of the Ithacan fleet. Men flooded out from the camp on the hillside, rushing down to the sandy beach where the beak of the ship slid to a halt. Suddenly men were leaping down from the sides of the galley and dashing through the knee-deep water to greet their comrades.
As Odysseus and Eperitus waded through the surf to the shore – their countrymen cheering them and slapping their shoulders as they passed – they saw Eurylochus waiting beneath the shade of a sycamore tree. He was pink with the heat of the late-spring day, and his fat jowls and forehead glistened with a film of sweat.
‘Thank the gods you’ve returned,’ he said, embracing his cousin and ignoring Eperitus. ‘It’s been five weeks since you left for Troy – we were beginning to fear the worst.’
‘It’s simply a long way,’ Odysseus answered, sitting down against the broad trunk of the tree and accepting a krater of wine from a soldier. ‘Has much happened in our absence?’
Eurylochus pointed to the ships in the bay. ‘Only the gathering of the greatest fleet of ships in history! We were almost the first – only King Nestor of Pylos was here before us – and there’s hardly been a day since that some contingent or other hasn’t swelled our numbers. And you should see the men who’ve come! More warriors than I’ve ever seen before, and all the great oath-takers are among them. Great Ajax is here, with Little Ajax and Teucer, of course. Diomedes arrived last week, bringing Sthenelaus and Euryalus the Argonaut with him. Idomeneus alone brought eighty ships from Crete! Then there’s Menestheus, Tlepolemos . . .’
‘What about Achilles?’ asked Palamedes, striding confidently up the beach with Menelaus. He had been a subdued presence during the voyage from Troy – even though Odysseus had made no mention of the events in Priam’s throne room, realizing that the Nauplian had been acting under Agamemnon’s orders – but seemed to be rapidly regaining his old arrogance and self-importance now that he was back on land.
‘Not yet,’ Eurylochus replied, giving Palamedes an equally haughty stare. ‘And nobody knows where he is. Some say he is in hiding, but others say he didn’t take the oath so isn’t under any obligation.’
‘They’re wrong on that point,’ said Menelaus. ‘His cousin Patroclus took the oath on his behalf.’
‘And if the rumours about him are true, he’d come whether he was bound to or not,’ Eperitus added. ‘One thing’s for certain: he won’t be hiding.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Odysseus said, shutting his eyes and resting his head against the gnarled bark. ‘Is my tent ready, Eurylochus? And how about something to eat for Menelaus, Eperitus and myself – not forgetting Palamedes, of course?’
‘We’ve just sacrificed a goat. It’ll be cooked by the time you’ve washed th
e brine from your limbs and changed your clothes.’
‘We’ll refrain,’ Menelaus said, though the smell of meat roasting over a nearby fire brought the saliva flooding into his mouth. ‘I have to find my brother and let him know we’re back. Where’s his camp, Eurylochus?’
‘On the highest point overlooking the bay – you can see his banner on the hillside, up there.’
‘And don’t be long yourself, Odysseus,’ Menelaus called over his shoulder, as he and Palamedes headed towards a path that led up the wooded hillside beyond the beach. ‘He’ll want to speak to you, too, no doubt.’
Odysseus simply shut his eyes and thought of a plate of freshly roasted goats’ meat.
News of the return from Troy spread rapidly and soon the Ithacan camp was besieged by soldiers from every state in Greece, seeking information about the Trojans and their fabled city. As the different Greek armies had spent the previous weeks practising their drills and tactics alongside or against each other, many of the men were greeted as friends and encouraged to share the Ithacans’ food and wine. And thus the rumours grew of the unassailable walls of Troy, with its beetling towers and vast armies, and of the great riches that lay within for any who could raze it to the ground.
Before long, Agamemnon’s squire, Talthybius, arrived at the camp with a summons for Odysseus and Eperitus. They were to leave their weapons behind and come to a council of the Greek kings, where the news from Troy was to be discussed and decisions made on what action to take. Odysseus asked Calchas, who had remained with the Ithacans, to come with them.
The path up the hillside was a steep one, but by now it was late afternoon and the heat of the day could no longer be felt under the dense canopy of trees, where the air was cool and fresh with the smell of pine. This made for a pleasant walk, though Eperitus quickly found Calchas’s company irksome: he often fell behind, and when they waited for him to catch up he would mutter endlessly under his breath. Before long they could smell the smoke from numerous cooking fires, drifting down the hill from the main camp above, and almost taste the roast pork on their tongues. A hubbub of conversation followed it, growing steadily louder until the woodland gloom gave way to patches of slanted light and, suddenly, they were free of the trees and standing atop a high, rocky plateau with a marvellous view of the vast fleet below them to their right. Even Talthybius, who had seen the sight many times by now, had to stop and admire the black silhouettes of the ships floating like coals on a sea of fire. In the west the sky was a brilliant, unblemished sheet of copper, glowing fiercely in the light of the bloated, dying sun. Beneath it, stretching over the boulder-strewn hilltop, were hundreds upon hundreds of white tents, reminding Eperitus of the flocks of seabirds that would gather on the craggy cliff faces of Ithaca. They snapped and fluttered in the wind, as did the flags and pennants of the many different kings that streamed out above them.
‘This way, my lords,’ said Talthybius, leading them down an avenue that drove through the middle of the canvas city.
There were soldiers everywhere. Some wore armour, though most did not, and all carried weapons of some kind – spears over their shoulders or swords hanging from baldrics or tucked into their belts. The majority were cooking or eating, though some were busily burnishing their bronze armour to a high sheen, or drawing whetstones up and down blades to sharpen them to a deadly edge. Occasionally, the laughter or cry of a woman indicated that prostitutes were plying their trade amongst the army.
Talthybius, however, did not take them deeper into the camp as they had expected, but suddenly led them down another wide avenue that went back towards the straits. As they were passing a crescent of large tents, Eteoneus, the squire of Menelaus, emerged, followed by three others.
‘Odysseus?’ said one of the men. ‘Odysseus, is that you?’
Odysseus turned to see a tall man of thirty years or so, athletically built and dressed in a grey tunic and dark green cloak. His long, auburn hair was pulled back over his scalp and tied at the nape of his neck, revealing a handsome and intelligent face. Despite the fact that he wore no armour and did not carry any weapons, the brown scar across his clean-shaven cheek marked him as an experienced warrior.
‘Diomedes!’ Odysseus exclaimed, breaking into a broad smile. He seized the man’s hand and pulled him into a fierce embrace, which they held for a long time as they thumped each other’s backs and exchanged friendly greetings.
‘I hear you and Menelaus have been in Troy, talking peace and other such nonsense,’ said the king of the Argives. ‘Tell me you failed!’
‘You’ll hear my report when I give it to the council – you’re heading there, too, I assume. Have you been in this place long? What’s the hunting like?’
‘Good – plenty of woodland beyond the camp, full of deer. But stop trying to change the subject. Tell me about Troy – what’s it like? Will we take it at the first assault, or is Priam going to put up a fight?’
‘Forget Priam. It’s his son, Hector, we need to worry about. Anyway, you’ll have to wait until . . .’
‘And what about Helen?’ Diomedes continued, his voice assuming a more serious tone. ‘Did you see her?’
Diomedes had lost his heart to Helen when he first set eyes on her ten years before, and despite taking a wife since then it was clear he still loved her.
‘No, Diomedes, I didn’t see her. Now, will you stop heaping questions on me and introduce your companions?’
Diomedes gave an apologetic nod and stepped between the two men, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.
‘This is my friend, Sthenelaus, son of Capaneus,’ he began, indicating the man to his right. ‘We sacked the city of Thebes together in vengeance for our fathers, and now I’ve asked him to rule the Argive army in my place, if I should fall.’
Sthenelaus’s hair was a mass of black curls and his thick beard covered half of his hardened, bitter-looking face. He gave a curt nod in response to Odysseus’s smile.
‘And this is Euryalus the Argonaut, son of Mecisteus. He was also with us when we conquered Thebes.’
Euryalus was a small man, several years older than his companions, with long, white hair and a closely cropped beard. His red face broke into a pleasant smile as he shook Odysseus’s hand.
‘You remember Eperitus, captain of my royal guard,’ Odysseus said, turning back to Diomedes.
‘Glad you’re with us, Eperitus,’ Diomedes said, taking his hand. ‘And your other companion?’
‘I’m afraid that introduction will have to wait until the council,’ Odysseus said. ‘And we shouldn’t keep our royal comrades waiting any longer. Talthybius?’
The Mycenaean herald, who had been talking patiently to Eteoneus, gave a small bow before turning and leading the way through the field of flapping canvas. Diomedes walked beside Odysseus and threw a muscle-bound arm about his shoulders.
‘So, I hear you’re a king now. You look like it, too: majestic appearance, powerful bearing, grey hair . . .’
‘Thanks. I wish I could say the same for you, but you look as young and handsome as you did ten years ago.’
‘Listen, have you spoken to Agamemnon yet?’ Diomedes asked, lowering his voice confidentially.
‘I spoke to him the night before we left for Troy,’ Odysseus replied, surprised by the sudden change of direction. ‘But not since we arrived at Aulis. Is something wrong?’
‘I’m not sure. I’ve been his friend for a long time and I know him well, but since all this business started with Helen and Troy . . . well, he seems different.’
‘Concerned, perhaps?’ Odysseus suggested. ‘Or pressured? It’s understandable.’
‘Perhaps. But you’ll be able to judge for yourself soon.’
And with that he would say no more.
Chapter Sixteen
THE COUNCIL OF KINGS
They heard the clamour of voices long before they reached the edge of the camp. After they passed the last tent, Talthybius and Eteoneus led them through a belt of sycamore t
rees to a pair of tall, grim-looking standing stones, placed there by an ancient people long since forgotten. These formed the gateway to a large, natural amphitheatre that opened out to the east, giving a view over the crowded bay far below. They walked out into the midst of at least a hundred kings and other nobility, who were crammed on benches around the rocky slopes of the arena, talking noisily.
Odysseus, Diomedes and Eperitus recognized many of them from the courtship of Helen in Sparta. Most prominent was Great Ajax, the king of Salamis, whose vast bulk took up most of the bench he was sitting on. On his left – the antithesis of the giant warrior – was his half-brother, Teucer the archer, who sat twitching and blinking like an owl and constantly wiping his large nose on the back of his hand. To Ajax’s right was his namesake, Little Ajax, so called for his short stature and to distinguish him from his titanic friend. To Eperitus’s disdain, he saw that the man’s pet snake – a hideous brown serpent with a long, pink tongue that constantly darted from its scaly mouth – was coiled about his shoulders. Its master fixed Odysseus with a sneering look and spat into the dirt.
Odysseus, who had not forgotten their contest for the hand of Penelope, chose to ignore the Locrian king and looked about at the other familiar faces on the benches. Menestheus, king of Athens, was seated beside Idomeneus of Crete; both were handsome and richly dressed, with noble looks that befitted the great power each man wielded. King Elphenor was there, who ruled over the island of Euboea on the opposite side of the straits, as were Agapenor, king of Arcadia, Tlepolemos, king of Rhodes, Iolaus, king of Phylake, and many other renowned names. Among the lesser men were Palamedes, seated on the bench nearest Agamemnon, and Philoctetes of Malia, son of Poeas. The last time Odysseus and Eperitus had seen the latter, he was a young shepherd boy who had been awarded the magical bow and arrows of Heracles for agreeing to light the great hero’s funeral pyre; now he was a tall, lean young man with a chaotic mop of light brown hair and a wispy beard on his chin. But he was not the only one who had changed in the past decade. Some of the former suitors to Helen had aged visibly; others seemed to have grown in stature; still more had grown in other ways, allowing their bellies to expand through overindulgence and too little fighting.