Blackguards

by J. M. Martin

"You worry too much about what the gods think, Euryclea. In the meantime, feed Argus, eh? He's turning to skin and bones as we stand here."

  Feed Argus being one of the sentences Argus understood, human conversation became impossible in the face of a flood of irrefutable canine rhetoric.

  Later, Odysseus went to see Penelope in her sickroom. She was ill with the fever that always comes after childbirth, but it hadn't dimmed her wits. He told her about his day. She chided him about teasing Euryclea, but she was unwontedly silent as he told her about the Ithacan nobles.

  "They're right, you know," she said when he was done.

  "They're not."

  "You should send me back to my father's house," Penelope said, her face still pale from blood loss, "and take a new wife."

  "No."

  "You can set her aside if she gives you a son, and call me back. If you want to."

  "No."

  "I'd treat the boy as my very own," Penelope pleaded. "And I wouldn't be jealous of the woman."

  "No."

  "Why not?" Penelope asked reasonably.

  "Because it's not your fault," he said, just as reasonably. "I've been with other women, you know. I've never had a son by any of them. If I had, I'd take him into the house and make him my heir."

  "What will we do, then?"

  For answer, Odysseus waggled his eyebrows lewdly at her.

  Penelope laughed and coughed and laughed again. "I can't yet," she said at last. "I'm still bleeding."

  "I'll wait. I'm good at waiting."

  "Then I'll try to be, too."

  When Penelope became pregnant for the fourth time, nobody ventured to advise the king on what he should do if the child was stillborn. This was because, if anyone seemed to be about to raise the subject with him, he would glare at them as if he were going to kill them on the spot. It had a way of killing the conversation on the spot, which was what Odysseus wanted.

  In fact, he talked with few people, except Penelope, during her fourth pregnancy. He spent much of the time hunting in the hills with Argus, now a long, lean, dangerous-looking animal. The appearance was not misleading, as far as beasts of prey were concerned: Argus was the best hunting dog Odysseus had ever raised. But any man, woman, or child could tie the dog's tail in knots if they wanted to. When Odysseus wanted to find Argus, he rarely bothered going to the kennels; instead he would wander down the road to see which of the local children Argus was playing with.

  Today was a deer-hunting day, and Odysseus had roused Argus and his hunting crew while it was still dark. They were deep into the hills above Odysseus' house by dawn. He had sent his crew ahead of him on a long curving path to scare up the deer and send them his way. Argus remained at his side to scent the prey and chase the animals down. Odysseus didn't use traps or gins to catch deer, nor did he hunt them with javelins. He had his great hunting bow with him, that no man but he had ever been able to bend.

  The time came when he ceased to hear his hunters up ahead. This was not so very odd (they had to be quiet to avoid startling the deer), but it was strange that he didn't hear them a little later on. If they were driving the deer toward him, they were doing it with great subtlety. And he knew these men: subtlety wasn't among their many virtues.

  "Go find them, Argus," he said to his lean dangerous-looking dog. "Find your friend Xenocles," he added, naming his chief hunter.

  Argus barked happily and ran off up the slope, disappearing over the ridge in moments.

  Odysseus waited a long time, but neither hound nor huntsman returned. Finally, he shook his head, put an arrow to his bowstring, and went over the ridge himself.

  Following Argus' trail as best he could, he came to a place where, it seemed to him, his huntsmen must have stood; he saw blood staining the sparse mountain grass. His mouth tightened, and he went onward down the slope. He was now following not the track of a single dog but the path of many feet.

  He came, at last, in midafternoon, to a hill above the sea-line. A ship was pulled up on the rocky shore below. Beside it a dozen or so armed men were herding a crowd of Ithacans, stripping them of their belongings and sorting them into two groups. The young and fit were sent on board the ship. Odysseus could see his huntsmen and their dogs—Argus among them—on the ship; the others were sent aside along the narrow beach.

  Pirates. Odysseus had lived on an island nearly all his life, and he knew the type. He hated them the way a shepherd hates wolves. The men and women taken on board would be sold as slaves. The others would be killed, so that they could not raise the alarm. Odysseus guessed several were already dead; these were lying motionless on the ground, with dark stains in the raglike clothes the pirates had left them.

  Odysseus set his feet firmly and took aim with his bow. He waited—his first shot must count for much—and at last released the arrow. It passed, dark-feathered, through three men, one standing, one kneeling, the other crouching. They fell, screaming, into the bitter foaming water of the shallows. At least, two of them were screaming—the third man seemed to be dead.

  Odysseus now drew arrow after arrow and shot without pause. Only moments would pass before the pirates realized where he was standing and gathered together to rush at him. He must account for as many as he could before then.

  Some god was guiding his arrows: each one wounded a pirate. Not all those struck were killed, but when the huntsmen realized what was happening they leapt out of the ship and struggled with the wounded men, their dogs fighting beside them (except for Argus who stood barking happily in the stern and looking around for his master). Three unwounded pirates were left to make the inevitable charge up the hill at Odysseus.

  He unhurriedly took aim with a final arrow and shot one of the three men through the throat; the pirate dropped and rolled down to the rocky beach. Then Odysseus turned and ran swiftly back uphill. The two remaining pirates chased him, both intent on revenge, but not (as Odysseus anticipated) at precisely the same pace. One was faster than the other and, when he passed over the ridge first, Odysseus was waiting for him there and struck him senseless, using the great bow as a club.

  Dropping the bow, he seized the bronze sword from the fallen man and waited for the last pirate, armed with a blade and a patient smile.

  The last pirate, out of breath after climbing the hill, took in the situation at a glance and struck at Odysseus' head. But the unarmored Odysseus was much nimbler; the pirate's blade slashed empty air. Odysseus, now behind the pirate, stabbed him under his left arm. The pirate fell, bleeding and gasping, to the ground and lay there.

  "Who…?" asked the dying pirate. "Who…are you…huntsman?"

  Odysseus bent over the dying man. "You want my name so you can curse me with your dying breath? Very well, pirate. If anyone in Hades asks you who did this to you, tell them it was brave Odysseus, son of Laertes, who rules in Ithaca." Then Odysseus lopped off the man's head before he could say a word.

  He then turned and, with a single thrust, dispatched the unconscious pirate at his feet.

  "Artemis," he cried, "far-shooting goddess who delights in arrows, I greet you with joy. Thanks for my huntsmen and this victory with the bow. Remember, please, my wife in her childbirth; I will remember you with this praise and in another song also.

  "Athena," he added, after a moment, "glorious goddess of the shining eyes, many-minded, unyielding in your will, aegis-bearer, city-savior, friend of heroes, I thank you for this victory with the sword. I will remember you with this praise, and in another song also."

  A feeling of awe came over him and he turned. An armored woman with lightning-colored eyes stood below him on the slope, but she towered over him, even without her high-crested helmet (which she held in the crook of her elbow). "You put me second, Odysseus," she said, in a clear voice ringing like a trumpet. "Suppose I don't like that?"

  "Dread goddess," he said politely but firmly, "the bow is Artemis' own weapon, and my huntsmen are her servants. Also, my wife nears her hour of childbirth and is in Artemis' hands. But if I
have done wrong I am sorry, and will appease you in any way you name."

  "You never do wrong, Odysseus," Athena replied indulgently. "That's why many of the gods consider you inconvenient. Not I, though. Share out the spoils below and take the ship back home; there's news awaiting you there."

  The goddess was gone, and the sunlight suddenly seemed a duller shade of gold.

  Odysseus dragged the two corpses down the slope that led to the sea. His huntsmen and the other captives greeted him with shouts of triumph; by now all the pirates were dead.

  "This victory is from the gods," he said, raising his hand to quiet them. "But we all fought; we all suffered. We'll treat the spoils as in war, each man to have a share. I take the ship as mine. Huntsmen, man the oars; you can come back for your shares later. You—" he recognized one of the townsmen "—Dictys, I put you in charge of the huntsmen's shares, and those belonging to the dead."

  Dictys bowed his head, acknowledging the honor and the obligation. "What'll we do with the dead Ithacans' stuff, Odysseus of many counsels?" he asked.

  "Take part of the spoils and give them a good funeral and give whatever's left to their families. If they've no family, buy offerings for Artemis and Athena; they've been good to us this day."

  "And the pirates…?" someone asked. "We don't want their ghosts wandering around here."

  "Bind their feet and put them on the ship," Odysseus directed. "I'll tend to them."

  Soon Odysseus was out at sea with his crew of the living and his cargo of the dead. He never felt more alive than when he was at sea: his ship bounding among the bitter blue waves, the untraveled world gleaming on the horizon. He steered the ship far out to sea until they reached a current that set away from Ithaca. Then, he and the huntsmen dumped the dead pirates into the sea. Without a burial, their ghosts would long wander the wrong side of the river Styx, unable to reach their final rest on the far side. It was the ultimate revenge.

  "Serve them right, the thieving, murdering bastards," muttered Elpenor, one of the youngest (and clumsiest) huntsmen.

  Odysseus sat at the steering oar and said, "Home."

  The huntsmen put their backs into it, and they were home soon enough.

  There was news for the king, both good and bad. His wife had given birth to a son, perhaps in those very moments Odysseus was fighting the pirates far away, and the boy was as healthy as could be. Odysseus took the baby in his arms, called him Telemachus, and kissed him. Then he went to sit by his sleeping wife, thinking furiously.

  For the other news had been very bad. King Menelaus' wife had been abducted by a foreign prince, and Agamemnon was already sending heralds to recruit the kings who had sworn to recover Helen if anyone kidnaped her. Kings like Odysseus.

  That damned oath. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. But perhaps there was a way out of it…

  #

  When the herald came to Ithaca, a month or so later, he found the house in mourning as if for a death. Nonetheless, he smiled. Of all heralds, he was the hardest to fool, and he had expected some sort of trick from the wily Odysseus. That was why he, of all heralds, had been sent here.

  "Where is King Odysseus?" he asked the pale-faced queen, clutching her newborn child. "I am Palamedes, herald of the great King Agamemnon, and I have words for your lord's ears."

  She said nothing but took him behind the king's great house and pointed.

  Odysseus was there, his dress strangely disordered, with straws stuck in his red hair and beard. He had yoked a horse and a donkey as a team to pull a plow. But the plow was backwards. Odysseus followed the plow as the uneven team drove a crooked furrow through the rocky soil; he scattered something pale behind him, as if it were seed. The field around him was full of such crazy furrows, but nothing grew there.

  The herald, who called himself Palamedes, went down to the field. He glanced down to examine the "seed" Odysseus was leaving on the furrows. It was sea-salt.

  Penelope explained. "Each day he comes out here, yokes up his team, and plows a few furrows seeded with salt. He says he can grow pillars of the stuff."

  The herald said nothing to this.

  "We think it was the shock of the child being born," Penelope explained. "It was our fourth, but the first that lived. He has been like this since little Telemachus was born, refusing to even look at the baby, swearing that he will raise crops of salt instead of children, since all his sons have died."

  The herald said nothing to this either.

  "We hope he'll be better soon," Penelope said.

  "So do I," the herald agreed.

  He leapt up from the ground and snatched baby Telemachus from Penelope's arms. As Penelope and Telemachus both cried out in dismay, the divinely tall herald gently set the baby down on the ground in Odysseus' path.

  Odysseus kept driving the team for a few feet as if he neither saw nor heard the baby in front of his plow. But, as the herald had expected, Odysseus soon turned aside his awkward team and halted it. He walked around the plow, picked up the crying child and quieted it.

  "Odysseus," said the herald, "I congratulate you on the sudden recovery of your wits. Give the child to his mother and come away; I have words for you."

  Odysseus inclined his proud head and did as the herald commanded.

  "A shrewd ploy," the herald commented when they were alone.

  "It wasn't meant to fool you," Odysseus said, almost sullenly.

  "Who, then?"

  "Palamedes, perhaps."

  The herald laughed. The sound went through Odysseus' head and the walls of his house and the mountains beyond, where the herdsfolk made the evil eye and prayed to be delivered from the watcher in the night, the thief at the gate, the ghost-leader: Hermes.

  "You're hard to fool, Odysseus," said the god of messengers and thieves. "How did you know?"

  "Palamedes is a tall clown with a good voice and not a single idea in his head."

  "He has a pretty good memory, too," Hermes said, a little defensively.

  Odysseus shrugged.

  "You're not always kind to my people, Odysseus," said Hermes. "I'm the god of thieves, remember; I saw what you did to those pirates."

  "And this is your revenge?" Odysseus demanded.

  "No. I'm under orders to recruit you for the war effort against Troy. Athena wants you there; Zeus requires you to fulfill your oath." The god of tricksters smiled a broad alarming smile. "I do have a revenge planned for you, an especially fitting one. You'll know when it happens. But it won't interfere with your duties as a leader in the Greek fleet. Nor will it harm your wife and son, in case you're wondering. Athena likes them and, frankly, so do I."

  Odysseus nodded. "Thanks, grace-bestowing Hermes."

  "Now send a letter to the real Palamedes, who is asleep on board that ship in your harbor, and let him (and, through him, Agamemnon) know that you'll fulfill your oath. Set someone to raising troops and ships here in Ithaca and go straight to Mycenae. Agamemnon is preparing an embassy to the Trojans, and you're to lead it."

  Odysseus' heart lifted at this news. "Then we might settle the matter without a war?"

  "I doubt it," the god replied. "But if there's a chance in ten thousand, you're the man to make it happen, Odysseus. I'll see you again." Hermes dropped his disguise and stepped into the air with winged feet.

  #

  Hermes was right. The embassy failed, and Odysseus did see him again.

  Ten years later, Odysseus was steering a ship into the harbor of Chryse, an island-kingdom off the coast of western Asia. The sun had set: a liplike smear of red marked its passage in the western sky. There were only a few lights visible in the town, none along the harbor, and the lack of light made steering a safe course difficult. But Odysseus wished there were less light still, since he and his sailors had come to sack the town. The Greek army in front of Troy was starving; they could buy no food from the neighboring lands, who all were allies of Troy, so they were going to steal it instead.

  They beached their ship
s alongside some fat merchant craft that didn't seem to have night guards; indeed, there were no guards anywhere in the harbor. That was foolish of Chryses, the priest of Apollo who ruled the little island from his palace-temple, but perhaps he didn't realize that war, like fire, is apt to spread, and that war, unlike fire, can easily cross a stretch of water.

  Odysseus sent men to take possession of the merchant ships and waited. When the moon finally rose, a blank bitter eye peering at them from over the eastern horizon, Odysseus turned to his second-in-command, Eurylochus, and said, "You know what to do. Jettison the cargo from those merchant ships, unless it's edible. I'll see you soon, I hope. But, remember, if the town rises and people start attacking the ships, don't fight them. Stand away from shore."

  "But—"

  "None of that, my friend. You may still be able to take us off, if the ships remain whole, but if the ships are burned we'll all die here."

  "You don't know if Achilles and that crazy Diomedes have done what they said they'd do," Eurylochus complained. He hated to miss a fight, and it made him surly, an attitude Odysseus simply couldn't understand, although he pretended he did.

  Diomedes and Achilles had landed with picked troops some distance up the coast. They planned to attack the priest-king's citadel and loot it. "It doesn't matter if they have," Odysseus explained to Eurylochus. "They're after glory. We're here for food, and we'll get it."

  He jumped from the prow of his ship down to the beach and roughly half the men from all his ships formed up with him on the shore. They all had their orders, and he only needed to gesture to have them do as he wished. They crept behind him up the road from the harbor to the town gate.

  There was only one guard on duty, and he was asleep. Odysseus killed him with a stab to the throat and gestured for his men to open the gate as quietly as possible.

  A shadow that smelled like Perimedes was standing by Odysseus, and he said to it, "Take your men to the warehouses by the market; I'll take mine to the cattle-pens. See you back at the beach."

  "Any captives?" the shadow whispered in Perimedes' voice.

  "If you want to draft people to carry stuff for you, that's all right. But I don't want anything going on our ships that we can't eat."