Penelope's Web

by Christopher Rush

  While he was away, I kept on shooting, picking them off one by one. They could have rushed me in a body, using the tables as a front line shield-wall. But the cunts lacked the courage. Each of them knew that whoever was in front was a dead man, and no one wants to be a dead man, even when he knows it’s coming anyway. So they ran about like rabbits and hid and shivered as I calmly selected my targets. They’d have been fucking useless at Troy.

  The corpses were piling up by the time Telemachus got back with the weapons. The swineherd and drover were with him, wearing armour and carrying the extra shields and spears. And that was just as well. The arrows gave out and there were no spares. And at that point, one of the group remembered the postern. It was higher up and had close-fitted doors, but it led up past the threshold into an outside alley. They only remembered it when I shouted to Eumaeus to guard it. I should have kept my mouth shut.

  Agelaus pointed. ‘Look lads, the postern! It’s only the pigman guarding the approach. If somebody can take him out and get up there and into the alley, we can raise the alarm! Any volunteers?’

  Melanthius screamed back at him from behind a table. ‘Impossible! The opening to the alley’s so fucking awkward, it’s useless! I know that route – it takes just one man to hold us back from it, and that fuckpig can do it. But not if you’ve got some heavy armour – then you could get through. I’ll bring you some. I know another way to the arsenal!’

  He managed to clamber up the wall to a smoke-vent in the roof. An arrow would have brought him down, but I was out of them and the bastard was quick. Too late I hurled at him as he disappeared through the hole.

  ‘It doesn’t matter!’ I shouted. ‘The arsenal’s locked! He can’t get in!’

  But suddenly he was back, hurling helmets and shields and spears down into the hall. I looked at Telemachus. He made a face.

  ‘I thought I’d locked it – fuck!’

  Fuck was putting it fucking mildly. I heard Melanthius shouting down.

  ‘I’ll go and get some more – the place is stacked out! He won’t have a chance now. He’s finished!’

  I shouted to Eumaeus.

  ‘Go and bolt that fucking door! Now! We don’t want any more of those buggers armed. And kill that bastard up there while you’re about it!’

  He nodded and ran.

  ‘Eumaeus – wait! On second thoughts, don’t kill the cunt – leave him for me! Tie him up in the arsenal before you lock it. String him up if you can. Don’t choke him, just enough to let him suffer for a while. Take Philoetius with you. Telemachus and I will take care of these lover boys.’

  The lover boys were having a dust-up. There weren’t enough weapons to go round, and they couldn’t agree on who would be the lucky ones.

  ‘It’s either a shield or a spear – you don’t get both!’

  ‘Not till Melanthius gets back with more!’

  ‘It’s no good going against him unarmed!’

  ‘One or the other – which is it to be?’

  ‘Some of us have got fuck all!’

  ‘There’s more ammo on the way!’

  ‘No there isn’t!’ shouted Eumaeus. He was fresh back from the arsenal. ‘Your little goat-fucker has got plenty of weapons up there, but he’s a bit tied up right now. You’ll have to make do! What you see is what you get!’

  They’d found Melanthius in the arsenal and lashed his hands and feet together behind him tightly – to the point of snapping sinews and breaking limbs. Then they’d hoisted him aloft against a pillar, all the way to the roof and left him slung there, the bones grinding in their sockets. His screams came tearing down into the hall through the light-holes. Eumaeus grinned.

  ‘Hear that? Melanthius won’t be serving you up your usual fare tomorrow! And when the sun comes up, she won’t catch him napping either! At dawn, he’s for the chop. You all are – the chopper and the slab!’

  Bravely spoken, just like at Troy, the war of words, the dance of defiance, vaunting, daunting, keeping death at bay – for a time. But only for so long. Sooner or later you have to close and settle the issue, not with bravado but with bronze. Then all the fine words in the world won’t help you. We were four men facing a still formidable unit, some of whom were now armed and armoured.

  For a moment it looked like we’d get a fifth man.

  My old friend Mentor broke away from the other side and started towards us, arms wide.

  ‘I’ll stand with you, Odysseus!’

  He’d been a good man. Maybe he still was. Maybe it was a matter of weighing up the situation and, in spite of the odds, deciding against the suitors – he’d never had much respect for them. Maybe it was the sudden sight of me and the memory of past friendship. Maybe it wasn’t even Mentor. Maybe it was Pallas Athene. Soldiers have been known to see gods in battle, appearing in the skies. Some have seen gods through blood and mud, though I never did. I didn’t even know what a god was supposed to look like. Penelope knew all that.

  It didn’t matter. Agelaus was assuming command, and he bellowed at Mentor.

  ‘Get back in line, you! These men are dogmeat! Join them, and you will you be too, and we’ll see to it that your family suffer. After we’ve wiped out these four, your estate will be forfeit, your son won’t live, your daughter will be raped, and your wife will be thrown out onto the streets to beg through life. That suit you? Is it enough?’

  Mentor’s fate was decided. He crept back into line.

  Pity. Pity, pity, pity. Mentor would be among the dead at the end. Penelope chose the Athene interpretation. See the goddess in the web, assuming the appearance of Mentor and inspiring Odysseus.

  ‘Stand fast, Odysseus, you who for nine unyielding years took on the Trojans for highborn Helen’s sake, and devised the trick that toppled topless Troy! See now how Mentor stays loyal in the ranks of death!’

  And after delivering this speech, Athene transformed herself into a swallow and sped up to perch aloft on the smoke-begrimed main beam of the hall, from which vantage point she had a literal bird’s-eye view of the battle.

  ‘Right!’ shouted Agelaus. ‘It’s still just the four of them! I want six spears up front!’

  And he called up five to join him: Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus, Peisander, Polybus. They all looked shit-scared, but they were going to make a stand. Agelaus was no fool, and he was showing some leadership. Good for him.

  ‘All you other lads, now, hold your fire, for fuck’s sake! Keep those spears close – you’ll need them! Us six will fire together. Go for Odysseus, never mind the other three. Once he’s down, they’re a pushover.’

  I laughed back at him. ‘There’s a brain in there somewhere! Shame it’s about to say chin-chin to your skull! When did your lads last throw a spear at a man instead of a rabbit?’

  ‘Ignore him, fellows, he’s trying to put you off! Now altogether, fire!’

  The whole volley went wide. One hit the doorpost, one the door, one the wall, the other three went nowhere, and we didn’t even bring up our shields.

  ‘Fucking pathetic!’ I shouted. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes in the line! Now we’ll show you how it’s done. Ready, boys? Left to right as we stand. Fire!’

  Four hits. Down went Demoptolemus and Euryades, each with an eyeful of bronze. Elatus got it in the throat, and it came out the back of the neck further than any spear I’d ever seen.

  ‘If I’d known you could throw like that I’d have taken you with me to Troy!’ I called to Eumaeus.

  Peisander fell flat on his back with Philoetius’s spear singing in his skull and swaying like a sapling in the gale. The cowman also could have signed on with Agamemnon. The two men left out of the six who’d shot at us turned and ran with the rest all the way up the hall. We followed, but only as far as we needed to pull our spears from the still twitching carcasses. Never waste weapons on the dead. And we backed up to the threshold door again, keeping our shields raised. Agelaus tried to restore discipline, but the next frantic flurry of spears was frankly laughable
. They’d have done more damage if they’d farted on us.

  We discharged our next volley into the thick of them and scored another four hits: Eurydamas, Amphimedon, Polybus, and – oh, glory! – Ctesippus, the brainless bully. Philoetius hit him square in his barrel chest, and he started walking backwards like a complete fucking idiot, staggering and spitting.

  ‘There you go!’ yelled Philoetius. ‘That’ll pay you back for the cow-hoof!’

  It was impossible to miss, but we were running short of spears.

  ‘Don’t throw any more!’ I ordered. ‘Get ready for the dash in!’

  We ran at them, roaring and screaming. Most of the bastards turned and ran. Agelaus faced me, but I drove my blade straight into his belly and felt it stick in the bone at the back. He dropped to his knees, screaming. I kicked him hard in the face and he fell back, clutching at his belly.

  ‘Something the matter down there? Let me help you out.’

  I wrenched the spear with a twist, and the entrails came out on show. Telemachus brought Leiocritus down. We closed in together. The enemy – if you could dignify the wankers by calling them that – was in disarray . . .

  . . . like the cattle stamping under the dancing gadfly, gone mad in the sudden spring-time, when the old earth heats up and the long days come in. Up aloft in the smoky roof of the palace hall, Athene raised her baleful aegis, and Odysseus saw the signal.

  It was time to massacre the bastards.

  The ones that remained alive were no fighters, just beggars for mercy. They got none. What they got were split skulls, slit throats, burst bellies, bronze between the teeth, through the eyeholes, up the arse. We hacked them down, sliced off arms, legs. The ground glittered with their innards and grew greasy with their blood. We started slipping.

  Somebody ran at me and clutched my knees.

  ‘Odysseus – I’m Leodes! I was their priest, that’s all. I never touched any of the women, I swear, and I kept telling them their behaviour was reprehensible, but they wouldn’t listen to me. Why should I be treated the same as them when I’ve done nothing wrong, I ask you? I’m begging you, let me live! You wouldn’t kill a priest, would you?’

  I looked down into the desperate eyes.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t kill a priest.’

  The eyes filled with relief.

  ‘But you’re no priest!’

  I kicked him away from me, and he came crawling back.

  ‘Let go of my fucking knees!’

  I kicked him again, this time in the teeth. He fell back into a sitting position, spitting blood and looking silly.

  ‘You’re no priest. You’re just another fucking hypocrite!’

  I picked up the sword that was still clutched in Agelaus’s dead hand.

  ‘Odysseus, I prayed –’

  ‘Yes, prayed I’d never come back, and that you’d get your priestly prick into Penelope!’

  He started to say something else as I struck him sideways on the neck, and the slashed head hit the dust still speaking, fuck knows what.

  The next beggar to drop on his knees was Phemius. He was holding out his lyre.

  ‘You see? No weapon. I’m only the minstrel, Odysseus. That’s all I ever was.’

  ‘I know you’re the fucking minstrel – I’ve heard you entertaining the cunts! You’d better give us a song then before you die, and it had better be fucking short! Are you in tune?’

  I grabbed his long hair and gave it a twist. ‘Let’s hear how you sing with your throat cut!’

  A hand came over my sword hand. Telemachus. ‘No – stop! This man’s innocent. He never was one of them.’

  ‘It’s true, Odysseus!’ He threw away his lyre and held my knees.

  ‘I never wanted to come here. They forced me to sing for them. They didn’t even pay me. Let me live, and I’ll sing for you from now on – for nothing, like a bird does, like a bird for a god!’

  ‘All right, I believe you. No need to make an epic out of it!’ I laid my sticky hand on his head. ‘I’m sorry about the blood.’

  A wide smile from Phemius. ‘On the contrary, my first song for you will be a song about this blood.’

  ‘And,’ said Telemachus, ‘another one we have to save is Medon the herald. He’s not one of them. They forced him like they forced Phemius. He’d no choice. But he always looked out for me and informed against them when he had the chance. I hope to god he’s not among the corpses.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  An oxhide draped over a chair started to move, and out came Medon. Telemachus burst out laughing. I couldn’t laugh, but I laid my hand on his head.

  ‘At ease, man, you’re safe. Now you and Phemius get out of here and wait in the courtyard. I may have more work to see to in here, and you’re safer out of the way – unless you want to fight.’

  They both shot out at the double, still half wondering if they’d really been spared. We raked around the hall for survivors and for anybody faking death or cowering under hides like Medon. I delivered the death-stroke here and there to stop the jerkings and the groanings. Then after all the noise there was this strange sudden silence. They were all dead.

  All dead. So many open mouths and eyes, heaps of them, like fish gasping on the sands, soundless shoals dragged from the glinting surf and thrown from the net to end their lives on the beach, under the bright sun, still longing for the sea, their salty, life-giving, liquid element. That’s how the shoal of lovers now lay, with gaping mouths and open eyes, some of them still quivering, fresh dead in the net that destiny had spread for them.

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘now it’s the women’s turn. Go up and tell Eurycleia to join me here. Nobody else is to come down, not yet, not one. Keep them locked in.’

  When the old woman entered the hall I hurried over, thinking to steady her as she looked at the battlefield. Already the stench was terrible, and I was spattered with blood and gore from head to foot. I put out an arm for her, but it wasn’t necessary. She looked at me, then at the pile of corpses. She took one of the drooped heads by the hair and raised it to see who it was, then dropped it with a hiss and a grin and lifted her bony arms high over her head. A weird cry came out of her. It wasn’t fear or pity: it was exultation, a song of terrible holy joy.

  I took hold of her and stopped her.

  ‘They were scum. But maybe it’s a bad thing to gloat too much over dead scum. They’ve paid the price. And we’ll be dead ourselves soon enough. Now tell me, who are the good women in the house and who are the whores? I know one in particular already.’

  She gave me her toothless grin.

  ‘I’ll run through the whole list, my boy. You’ve got fifty women between these walls. Most of them are making the best they can out of slavery, and some are bitches gone a bit wild but who can learn from their errors. The rest are first-class whores with no respect for themselves, let alone for me or your wife. There’s a dozen like that, the ones who’ve turned really bad. They stick their fingers up at us and lift their skirts for that lot. Not anymore, though.’

  She started to howl again. It gave me the shivers.

  I cut her short. ‘Bring them down. If they refuse to come, tell them they’ll be burned alive.’

  She hobbled off at full speed, and I called everybody together – Telemachus, the two herdsmen, the minstrel and the herald, the heart of a new household.

  ‘When the women come down, start ferrying out the dead and make them assist you. I want them to take a good look at what’s left of their playboys now. As soon as they’ve taken out the bodies, make them clean up in here – tables, chairs, the floor, everything. They’ll need plenty of water and sponges. And once they’ve done their housework, take them outside. Take them to the area between the round-house and the courtyard wall, and use your swords on them, any way you like. Just make sure that none of them is left alive by the time you’ve done with them. They had a high old time here, fucking their lovers and pissing on the household. Now they’ll piss themselves, all right. They’ll beg. Don’t
listen. I want them all dead.’

  Eurycleia didn’t obey orders. The whores trooped in with the tears streaming down their faces, but so did Penelope. As the females bunched together in their terror, I saw the horrified figure of my wife standing behind them. She was staring at me. Eurycleia was screaming, out of control.

  ‘It’s him! I told you! I told you! It’s him! You didn’t believe me!’

  Still she stared, still as a statue, white-faced, speechless. What should she say? What should I say? What can you say? How are you, my dear one? It’s been a long time. Did you miss me? Aren’t you glad to see me then? Shall we forget the war and everything? And resume our lives?

  Odysseus stands among the corpses of the slain like a lion fresh from feeding after his killing spree. He has torn the bullock to pieces and dipped his jaws into its side. He lifts his head and glares, and the crimson gore drips from his mouth and mane. His eyes are on fire. He roars and shakes himself, scattering droplets of blood. Among the dead suitors, spattered with blood and filth, so stands Odysseus, the king of beasts, the King of Ithaca.

  Is that what she saw? It’s what’s in the web. It’s what she wove. But I’m willing to bet that what she saw, after the years of not seeing, was a madman, a killing machine that had done its work and didn’t know what else to do, except kill. She saw an alien in her home, a brutalised being, drunk on blood. And she turned and ran.

  That made it easier. We set the whores to work. First, as directed, they removed the corpses of the suitors. Where heads were missing, they were told to identify them correctly and stick them back on. I made them strip the men naked and pile up the clothes for burning.

  ‘How d’you fancy them now, you sluts? Not so pretty, are they? And their pricks have gone soft!’

  They washed down the walls and the furniture, cleared away the ruined food, the wine cups, the spilt bowls. They scraped the filth and slithers from the floor, piled up the scrapings and took them outside. They put the naked bodies under the portico and propped them up against each other in a ghastly row. I hounded them on at their work.