Odysseus nodded. ‘He was only a boy, wasn’t he? Didn’t he come out onto the field against his father’s wishes and fall to the spear of Achilles?’
‘That’s what I thought too,’ Agamemnon smiled. ‘But it seems the Polydorus that Achilles killed was only one of Priam’s bastards. He’d been given the name as cover for the real Polydorus who was Hecuba’s youngest son and of the true blood. Priam sent the boy away from Troy early in the war so that his line didn’t die out completely if the city fell. He’s been living here in the court of Polymnestor and his Queen Iliona, who’s one of Priam’s daughters and sister to Polydorus.’
‘So Polymnestor thought you’d come here to smoke him out?’
‘Exactly; and when he saw the size of the fleet bearing down on his headland he decided the game wasn’t worth the candle. So he did the job for me himself.’
‘He intends to hand the boy over to you?’
‘He’s already done so. When he saw my ship approaching he pushed his body out to sea with a message attached to it explaining the situation.’
‘So he’s already dead.’
‘Very dead.’
‘And now we’re all good friends?’
Agamemnon frowned at the sarcasm. ‘Personally, I wouldn’t trust this Thracian kingling as far as I could throw him. But he knows that the balance of power has shifted across the Aegean once and for all and he’s looking for allies not for enemies. In the meantime we have a place to beach the ships till the wind changes. I don’t expect any trouble from him.’
‘How old was the boy?’ Odysseus was thinking — as Hecuba had challenged him to do - about his own son, Telemachus.
‘Twelve? Thirteen? All I know for sure is that there’s no way he’s going to grow up and come looking to avenge his father now. So that really is the last of Troy.’
‘And what about Queen Iliona?’
‘What about her?’
Odysseus sighed at the obtuseness. ‘Are we to assume she was content to see her little brother murdered by her husband?’
‘Who knows?’ Agamemnon shrugged, increasingly annoyed by the Ithacan’s refusal to share his pleasure. ‘Perhaps she’s just thanking her gods that she’s better off than her wretched mother.’
‘And Cassandra?’ Odysseus pressed. ‘Wasn’t she the boy’s sister too? What are her feelings about this?’
Agamemnon lost patience then. ‘In the name of the gods, why do you always have to look on the black side of things? Can’t you see we’ve struck lucky again? And the beauty of it is I had no more idea of Polydorus’ existence than you did. So cheer up, you miserable Ithacan. We’re going to dine at Polymnestor’s expense tonight. I want you to come and get very drunk with the rest of us.’
But Odysseus was in no mood for drunken revelry. He was thinking that in some declivity of her pain, Queen Hecuba must have been sustained by the secret knowledge that, for all the grievous losses she had endured, one of her sons still survived, hidden away on this northern peninsula where the Argives would never find him. Now that son had been betrayed. Sooner or later she must learn that Polydorus was among the dead, murdered by his sworn protector, her own royal son-in-law, a Thracian kinsman. Odysseus could not conceive how even a mind and heart as strong as Hecuba’s could withstand this final blow.
By the time he joined the feast that the Thracians had arranged for Agamemnon and his captains, the evening had already deteriorated into a rowdy binge over which Polymnestor presided with a canny, bibulous vigilance. A small, tubby man with a ginger moustache forking to either side of his narrow lips, he took pleasure in feeding titbits from the table to a gaudy parrot that was tethered by a golden chain to a perch at his side. The hall was clammy with heat from the huge fire blazing at the central hearth, and many slaves - whose pallid, greyish skins suggested they had been captured in some barbarian territory far to the north — were kept busy, serving the tables from the sides of beef and hog-meat turning on the spits, and pouring wine from amphorae to the mixing-bowls and thence to the goblets of the guests. Eager to be generous with his hospitality, the Thracian king seemed disappointed that Agamemnon remained more attentive to Cassandra, who sat beside him next to her sister Queen Iliona, than to the broad-hipped, half-naked dancing girls whose chains of silver baubles jangled as they rolled their bellies to the plangent sound of pipes and drums. Having decided he would not remain long in that drunken company, Odysseus was already thinking of leaving when Polymnestor sought him out, demanding that he take more wine and asking to hear more of the strategy of the wooden horse by which all of King Priam’s might had finally been destroyed. Repelled by his unctuous manner, Odysseus kept his answers terse, insisting that without the courage of his companions inside the horse his own ingenuity would have counted for nothing. But Polymnestor seemed determined to make a friend of him and would not be deterred.
The din of the revelry buzzed in Odysseus’ ears. The smell of too many people crowded in a hot space assailed his nose. His eyes shifted between the rotten teeth in Polymnestor’s mouth and the golden torque around his throat. Amid the heave of human carnality around him, his mind flashed back on images of the silent bodies of the Trojan dead. He heard himself saying, ‘But weren’t you and Priam kinsmen and friends?’
Evidently untroubled by the question, Polymnestor twisted his lips in a weary moue. He opened his hands as though to let something drop. ‘The world changes, my friend,’ he smiled. ‘A man who fails to change with it is nothing.’
‘And in such a world,’ Odysseus asked, ‘how shall a man know who to trust?’
A little ruffled by such seriousness on what was intended to be a light-hearted occasion, Polymnestor stroked his moustache with a heavily ringed finger. ‘Ah, we are men of the world, you and I,’ he said. ‘We know that loyalty can be bought and sold. One need only keep an eye on the going price.’
Odysseus felt the sweat breaking at his brow. The hand holding his drinking-cup was trembling. With a stammered excuse that he was feeling ill, he turned away, leaving his host gaping after him as he pushed through the rowdy throng of men and women dancing round him, and out into the chilly air of the Thracian night.
The cloud-cover had broken, and a gibbous moon hung its radiance across the turbulent sea. In the silence of the night Odysseus became conscious of a sound filling the channels of his ears of which he had not been conscious before, like a muffled alarm still ringing in an empty city. He had been standing alone for some time, trying to shake his head clear, half-afraid that he was losing his grip on his mind, when he heard a woman’s voice behind him.
‘Lord Odysseus?’
Turning, he saw Cassandra standing there. She was wearing a cloak draped over her head and shoulders against the night wind. A thin hand held the folds of cloth together at her throat.
She said, ‘The entertainment is not to your taste?’
‘Neither the entertainment nor the company.’
She stepped a little closer towards him. ‘Then will you be patient with me for a moment? There is something I need to ask of you.’
Thinking that this strange young woman had never previously shown the least sign of humility in his presence, he said. ‘There’s nothing I could grant that you could not extract more easily from your new lord and master.’
‘You are wrong,’ she answered. ‘This thing is in your power.’
Uneasily Odysseus said, ‘What is it?’
‘I have been talking with my sister Iliona. She has not seen our mother for many years and longs to do so. I have told her that Hecuba is held by you. I have also told her that, alone among the Argive generals, you have shown compassion for the sufferings of the captive women. It is Iliona’s wish that you allow our mother to come to the palace so that we can grieve together for the death of Polydorus. I told her that I did not think that Odysseus would refuse this wish.’
Staring through the darkness at the pale, always enigmatic face of the woman across from him, he said, ‘Hecuba doesn’t yet kno
w that her son is dead.’
‘Then be merciful and let her daughters be the ones to tell her.’
‘Am I to understand that Queen Iliona had no part in her brother’s death?’
‘You may understand,’ Cassandra replied with alarming honesty, ‘that she has as little love in her heart for Polymnestor as do I for Agamemnon.’
‘And does Agamemnon know this?’
‘The High King knows what he wishes to know.’
‘Which may be less than is good for him?’
Cassandra merely shrugged beneath the linen cloak.
After a moment Odysseus said, ‘Do you give me your word that the three of you will not conspire together against Agamemnon?’
‘It was not Agamemnon who murdered Polydorus.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘If I were to give you my word, would you believe it?’
It was already evident to Odysseus that Cassandra had more in mind than a wake for a dead brother. From the unflinching way she held his gaze, he also saw that she was aware of his suspicions. Yet whenever this young woman spoke there was always a palpable air of truth about her as though her powers of prophecy had cursed her with a tongue that could not he.
‘Yes,’ he heard himself answering, ‘I believe that I would.’
‘Then you have it,’ she said.
As a matter of simple prudence, Odysseus informed Agamemnon the next day that he had given permission for Hecuba to leave his camp and visit her daughter Queen Iliona in the palace of King Polymnestor. Agamemnon confirmed that Cassandra had already spoken to him of this meeting and that he would do nothing to prevent it. Polymnestor had already suggested that they go hunting in the hills that day, and though he took little pleasure in the Thracian king’s company, the expedition would make it possible for the meeting to take place without occasioning a bitter confrontation between Hecuba and her treacherous son-in-law. And so, later that day, accompanied by her serving-women, Hecuba made her way up the steep rise into the citadel.
But when Polymnestor returned from the hunt late that afternoon he found Hecuba waiting for him in his palace. Recovering quickly from his surprise, he stood before her, open-armed, his face a mask of grief and sympathy for all the misfortunes that had befallen her. Profuse with apologies that he had not sought her out sooner, he declared that he had only just learned from Agamemnon that she was held in the Argive camp by Odysseus. That strange fellow had said nothing of it at the previous night’s feast or he would certainly have come at once to offer her his comfort and condolences. ‘How to account for such calamities,’ he lamented, ‘except to say that we are all helpless before the will of the gods? Sometimes I wonder whether they deal with us so capriciously merely to make us revere them out of a simple fear of the unknown.’
Without allowing her eyes to settle on him, Hecuba nodded. ‘There can be no comfort for my grief - though it has been some solace to know that Polydorus is in your safe keeping still.’
Polymnestor could only mirror her nodding for a moment, wondering what he would say if this half-crazed queen asked to see her son. Before he could think of a way to pre-empt the request, she was saying, ‘I would dearly love to look on his face again but Iliona tells me that you wisely concealed him far upcountry when you saw the Argive fleet approach. The beast of Mycenae would not have let him live an hour longer if he had laid his foul hands on him.’ Then she leaned her hawkish features forward, gripping his wrist. ‘But as long as Polydorus lives,’ she hissed, ‘all is not over for us.’
‘No,’ he murmured uncertainly, ‘while there is life there is always hope.’
‘And you have the gold safe that we sent to you from Troy?’
‘Yes, it’s all quite safe in my treasury. The Argives know nothing of it.’
Again Hecuba nodded. ‘I see that we chose well, Priam and I, when we sent our son to you as our forlorn hope. Few men could dissemble so. If we are patient, dear friend, our hour must surely come.’
Conscious of the pain in his wrist where her fingers gripped him like talons, Polymnestor dared not pull away. He looked down into her face and caught what he thought to be the glint of madness in her eyes. Was this indomitable old woman really still hoping that her last surviving son could mount a campaign against the might of Mycenae with the gold that Priam had shipped from Troy into his vaults? Yet after all she had endured it seemed only charitable to humour her in this last pathetic illusion.
‘And when that hour comes,’ he said, ‘I shall be ready.’
Hecuba released his hand and glanced up at him so fiercely that he thought for a moment that she had seen through his deceit. But then it was as if the strength went out of her. She caught her breath as though to stifle the tears that might otherwise overwhelm her and said, ‘Apart from my servants who are as helpless as myself, I am a woman alone in the world. Whether I wish to or not, I must now look for help. I have only you to turn to, Polymnestor.’
What was she going to ask of him? He stood uneasily, wondering now whether it might not be wiser to disentangle himself from this old woman and her desperate dreams. Let her face the stark truth of her circumstances as he had been forced to do once Troy had fallen and the Argive fleet sailed into his waters.
‘There is more,’ she said.
Despite his consternation, the man was astute enough to pick up the fervour of a silent message in her eyes. If he was prepared to hear, this woman might still have something to say that might prove to his advantage.
‘More?’
Her gaze flitted around the chamber, making sure that she could not be overheard. Then it settled on his face again. ‘More gold lies buried beneath the ruins of Troy. Buried where all the Argive army could not find it.’
After a moment Polymnestor said, ‘King Priam was ever gifted with great foresight. But can this gold still be recovered?’
‘I cannot do it. Not while I am held captive by Odysseus. And there is no one left alive in Troy that I can trust.’
Polymnestor allowed a further deferential silence to pass before saying, ‘You know that I have always stood at your service.’
‘I know it, and may the gods reward you as you deserve. But where there is gold there is also temptation. If I were to tell you how it might be found, do you swear that you would use it only to further my son’s righteous cause?’
‘As your son lives,’ said Polymnestor, ‘I so swear it.’
He saw a fierce little smile of gratitude cross Hecuba’s face, a smile that might have shrivelled the heart of a more scrupulous man. She said, ‘I knew that I could rely on you to respond as I thought.’ Then she looked away and began to finger the long strands of her silver-grey hair and chew at her lower lip so that he began to wonder if her wits had gone astray at this most critical of moments.
‘This treasure must be buried in a truly secret place,’ he said.
‘It is. And all who placed it there are dead.’
‘Then how shall it be recovered?’
The lines of Hecuba’s gaunt features wrinkled in a cunning smile. ‘There is a map, a clay tablet inscribed by Priam’s own hand. It shows precisely where the treasure lies — on the site where the Temple of Athena once stood. Even among the ruins, it can easily be found with the guidance of this map.’
Polymnestor lowered his own voice to a whisper as he said, ’Then it should be kept securely. Do you have it with you?’
Frowning, she shook her head. ‘Had Odysseus seen me leaving the camp with it, he would certainly have taken it from me. And the man is ingenious enough to work out its significance. No, I dared not risk it.’
Suppressing his excitement, Polymnestor said, ‘But surely it should be put beyond his reach as soon as possible? Let me send for it.’
‘I will deliver it only into your hands,’ Hecuba said. ‘I trust no one else.’
‘I understand.’ He fingered his moustache. ‘Then I must find some pretext to come to your tent.’
‘But if O
dysseus sees you there he is sure to suspect something.’
‘Then I must come unannounced,’ he frowned, ‘and under cover of darkness.’
Hecuba clutched at his wrist again. ‘The women’s pavilion stands apart from those of the men. It is easily found. If you come there by dark no one will see you carry the map away. Dare you do this thing for me?’
‘It shall be done tonight.’
‘And you must come alone,’ Hecuba urged.
Immediately she sensed him stiffen. He was about to demur but she closed her other hand over the one that gripped his wrist. ‘We cannot allow anyone else to guess at this secret.’ Her voice was urgent, her harrowed eyes were all appeal. ‘Where the prize is so great, only kinsmen are to be trusted … and I confess to you, even that comes hard.’
‘Have I not kept faith with you all these years?’ he reassured her. ‘Once this gold is secured we shall have the means to see that Troy rises again.’
’With my son on the throne,’ she pressed. ‘Polydorus is the rightful heir to Troy. Remember you are sworn to his service.’
‘Rest assured, madam, this gold will be as safe with me as your son has been.’
‘Then I see you swear truly,’ Hecuba said and released his hand.
The first that Odysseus knew of the consequences of this encounter was a terrible screaming in the night. Reaching for his sword, he rushed from his tent. The moon was still big and radiant in the night. By the milky light it cast across his camp, he saw a small hunched figure shrinking away from him with grey hair blowing about her face. A sound issued from her lips but whether the gasps were of anguish or of crazy laughter he would have been hard-pressed to say. The canopy of the women’s pavilion flapped in the night breeze at her back. It was from there that the sound of screaming came.
‘Hecuba,’ Odysseus demanded as other men appeared around him, ‘what is it? Has someone assaulted you?’
But the old woman did not answer him. She merely stood there in the gloom, looking down in fascination at whatever it was she clutched in her hands. Sinon came up beside Odysseus holding a torch he had lit from the camp-fire. In the same moment another figure staggered into the moonlight out of the women’s tent. He was holding a hand across his face, screaming for help and crying out that the bitch had blinded him. When the man lowered the hand to help feel his way, Odysseus saw that his face was streaming with blood. Yet he recognized the forked moustache and portly figure of Polymnestor.
The Return From Troy Page 15