by Glyn Iliffe
Several men began blocking up the entrance to the tomb, the clack of the stones marking the end of the ceremony. All that remained now was the funeral banquet in Anticleia’s honour. Laertes distrusted the nobility and had only invited a loyal core to the burial, but many more were certain to show up at the feast. Indeed, some were beginning to treat the palace as if it were their own home. It gave them the sense of power they felt they had been deprived of for so long, and which a few – Eupeithes chief among them – believed they were entitled to.
Penelope tipped the hood of her cloak back from her head and sighed. The thought of Eupeithes and his followers crowding her home filled her with dismay, but she could hardly excuse herself from her own mother-in-law’s funeral banquet. Reluctantly, she joined the trickle of mourners returning to the palace, wondering how she would cope for a whole day in the presence of so many of her enemies. For if her life had been difficult since Odysseus’s departure, it was unbearable without Telemachus. The fact her son would inherit the throne if his father did not return had always put him in danger, but with Eupeithes reviving his ambition to rule, that danger had become acute, forcing her to send Telemachus to safety in Sparta. And yet without him she felt lost. She could not hold him in her arms and forget for a while the responsibilities and pressures of being the queen. She could not look at his face and see the shadow of Odysseus staring back at her, reminding her that one day her husband would return to put things right. And if for ten years she had felt like a candle holding back the darkness, without Telemachus she wondered how much wick remained.
So she had done the only thing she could do that would allow him to return to Ithaca in safety. She had publicly promised to remarry if Odysseus did not return from the war before Telemachus came of age, thereby giving her new husband the right to the throne ahead of her son. It was all part of the game she had to play to preserve Odysseus’s kingdom for his return. And for now it had worked. Eupeithes had nothing to gain from killing Telemachus, so Penelope had sent word to Sparta for her son to return. But if Odysseus did not come back before Telemachus was twenty-one then they would lose everything.
As she approached the gates in the outer wall of the palace, a large grey boarhound ran out to greet her. He barked loudly, turned back to the gates, then changed his mind and came bounding towards her again.
‘What is it, Argus?’ she asked, kneeling to embrace him. ‘What’s got you so excited?’
‘Mistress,’ Autonoe said. ‘Look.’
A tall, grey-haired man was watching her from the gateway. He wore a brown tunic and a travel-stained cloak, and a short sword hung from a baldric at his side.
‘Halitherses?’
The man opened his arms and gathered Penelope up like a child as she ran to meet him.
‘When did you get back?’ she demanded joyfully.
‘The galley’s still unloading in the dock, my lady.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In his room, I expect. When they told him where you were – that his grandmother had died – he ran off. Too proud to let anyone see him cry, of course.’
‘I’ll go to him now,’ she said, pausing briefly to kiss the old man on the cheek. ‘Halitherses, thank you for keeping him safe.’
He smiled and nodded. ‘Go and see your son; we’ll talk later.’
It was as much as she could do to keep herself from running across the inner courtyard and through the palace doors, but with so many slaves around she had her dignity to maintain. As soon as the doors closed behind her, though, she ran along the darkened corridors and up the stairs to the living quarters. Telemachus was in his room, spread across his bed with his face in the furs. She sat down beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder.
‘Telemachus?’
He lifted his head at the sound of her voice and she caught only the merest glimpse of his tear-filled eyes before he sat up and buried his face in her chest. At last, she felt almost whole again.
Chapter Five
THE TEMPLE OF ATHENA
Troy was no longer recognisable as the great city it had been just two days before. From the ruin of the Scaean Gates, which had witnessed the deaths of Hector and Achilles, to the entrance to the citadel on the mound above, the streets were strewn with charred rubble and the remains of ordinary things: smashed furniture, shattered pots, torn clothing, discarded sandals. Their former owners were now either enslaved or their blackened bones smouldered on the numerous pyres that filled the air with the stench of burnt flesh. Here and there, in the dirt or sprayed across the walls of the destroyed hovels, were the bloodstains that marked where they had fallen. The devastation within the great citadel of Pergamos was even worse. Here the violence had reached a climax as the Trojans had fled to find sanctuary among the palaces and the temples, and Priam’s soldiers had fought to defend their king against the hated Greeks. But their resistance had only provoked a greater fury in the victors, who murdered, raped and plundered without pity. And when the last of the defenders were dead, they had taken out their rage upon the very stones about them, first with fire and then – when the flames had burned themselves out – with their bare hands, pushing and pulling at walls until they collapsed in swirls of dust.
Eperitus and Odysseus stood at the foot of the ramp that led to the second tier of the citadel and looked at the ruination before them. It was hard now to recall the rich and glorious city they had first encountered before the war, when as young men they had joined Menelaus’s embassy to demand the return of his wife. Now the high roofs had fallen in on themselves and the muralled walls were cast down, leaving nothing to obscure the ring of broken battlements about the citadel or the wide blue skies beyond them. The poplar trees that lined the ramp were burned and the palace at the top was transformed into a pile of debris. Everything was coated with dust, so that even the stunted walls that had survived the conflagration were not black but a powdery grey. And still the crash of stone echoed through the desolation as teams of soldiers, following Agamemnon’s orders, tore down what remained of the ramparts.
‘Come on,’ Odysseus said.
Eperitus followed him up the rubble-littered ramp to the second tier. By now the sun was high above them, teasing out beads of sweat from beneath his arms and the middle of his back that trickled slowly down his skin. Little remained of the temple of Athena: its marble columns had fallen and lay at angles across the broad steps; its high roof was gone, and the remnant of its thick walls was blackened with fire; the painted statue that had stood before the temple lay toppled and headless on the rubble-strewn cobbles, its gaudy purple robes and golden trim dimmed by a thick coating of dust.
Odysseus stood over it and shook his head. ‘May the gods forgive us.’
Clutching the bulky sack under his arm, he mounted the broken steps and passed through the open doorway to the temple beyond. Eperitus followed. The last time he had been there was on the night they had stolen the Palladium. Then their torches had nudged back the shadows to reveal walls painted with frescoes, a high ceiling supported by twelve thick columns and an oversized statue of Athena seated on a throne at the back. Now the columns had collapsed and brought the ceiling down with them, allowing broad sunlight to shine on the piled debris. A haze of dust still filled the air, preserved somewhat from the wind by the remnant of the walls. These were scorched, and much of the limestone plaster had fallen away, though a few murals survived. These, too, were cracked and dust-covered, the stories they told obscured and disjointed. Only in one place did Eperitus see anything recognisable: a depiction of Athena springing fully formed from the head of Zeus. But it was the only image of the goddess that remained. Even the seated statue had been destroyed by the flames and the collapse of the roof. All that remained now were its skirted knees and sandalled feet.
Odysseus glanced sidelong at Eperitus.
‘We should have prevented this. I could have ordered a company of men to stand guard over the temple. That’s all it needed, a bit of forethought. But I was too
busy plotting an end to the war to give mind to anything else.’
Eperitus stooped down and picked a broken roof tile from the wreckage of the temple. He rubbed idly at the scorch marks with the heel of his thumb, then tossed it aside.
‘You can’t think of everything, Odysseus, and you certainly couldn’t have prevented this. Even if you’d ordered a hundred men to defend the place while the rest of Troy burned, Agamemnon would have had it destroyed afterwards. He commanded the city to be razed, and whatever Agamemnon wants he gets. Even the gods seem powerless to prevent him.’
‘They may not have stood in his way,’ Odysseus replied, ‘but they won’t forgive him for what he’s done. That’s precisely why we’re here now. I fear Athena’s wrath on the journey home if we don’t return the Palladium. And what man can survive the ocean with the gods against him? But if I can put it back where it belongs, she might let us sail unhindered.’
‘She might and she might not,’ Eperitus said. ‘I suppose there’s no danger if we let Troy have her talisman back, though. She’ll never rise to challenge Greece again. Not from these ruins.’
‘A foolish thought,’ answered a voice from among the rubble, speaking in the Trojan tongue. ‘A foolish thought, indeed. A new Troy will rise to face the Greeks, if not here then somewhere else. And if it doesn’t, then the Greeks will go in search of one. And when the Greeks are no more, other nations will find their own Troys to face. It’s the nature of nations and the nature of men. If you don’t confront the Troy that lies beyond the next horizon, then you’re left with the Troy within, and that might just prove the better of you.’
Odysseus laid the Palladium at his feet and placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.
‘Who are you? Come out where we can see you.’
‘I’m here, in plain view.’
The men turned to see the figure of a woman standing on the plinth beside the knees of the broken statue. She was short and plump, with a long cloak about her shoulders and a shawl over her head. The white wool was stained grey with the dust of the temple and her old face had an equally grey pallor. Eperitus recognised the high priestess of Athena and wondered that he had not seen her standing there before.
‘Theano,’ Odysseus said. ‘I thought you and Antenor were with Menelaus. It’s not safe for you here.’
‘My husband and sons sailed with the Spartan fleet at dawn, but I slipped away in the confusion at the last moment. Athena commanded me to wait in her temple.’
‘Wait for what?’ Odysseus asked.
‘For you, of course. My mistress knows you better than you think, and far better than you think you know her. Do you really believe returning the Palladium will be enough to appease her anger? It has saved your life – you would not have survived any voyage with it on board – but you have yet to earn the goddess’s forgiveness. You betrayed her, Odysseus, and that is not something to be overlooked. Those chosen by the gods for special favour must put the gods before everything else. When she warned you not to take the effigy and defile her temple, you put your desire to return home before the will of the goddess.’
Odysseus hung his head.
‘Then you remember what happened,’ Eperitus asked the priestess, ‘after Athena took possession of your body, here in this temple?’
‘I recall finding you here and threatening to call the guards, and I remember Odysseus’s sword point pressed against my throat. After that, nothing until I woke gagged and bound the next morning. But I am not a priestess for nothing, Eperitus, son of Apheidas. My mistress communicates with me as well as through me. I understand much more than you imagine. I know she loves your king dearly, more than he deserves. Certainly more than many other men of greater power and higher renown than him.’
‘Then will she appear to us again?’ Eperitus asked.
‘If you mean will she take possession of me, then no. You will not see the goddess until your return to Ithaca,’ she said, turning back to Odysseus. ‘And that will no longer be easy, my lord. Your voyage will be beset with difficulties and trials. As you were a bad guest in Athena’s house, so you will face many bad hosts on your return journey.’
‘Then will the oracle prove true?’ Odysseus said, bitterly. ‘Am I doomed not to see my family and home for ten more years?’
‘That depends on what you believe. Do you now accept a man’s destiny is pre-ordained; that the Pythoness is a prophet of doom? Or do you stand by what you used to believe: that his fate is dictated by his actions and the priestess’s words are nothing more than a phantom of the future, a warning of what could be? If the former, then why did you disobey the goddess, knowing you were doomed not to see Ithaca for another ten years? If the latter, then the speed of your return – even whether you will see your home again or perish on the way – depends entirely on how you meet the challenges before you.’
Odysseus moved closer to the plinth where Theano stood, crunching the rubble and broken tiles beneath his sandals.
‘Then I will be home soon, for my desire to see my wife and son is greater than any obstacle that stands between us.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ Theano replied. ‘First you must learn that the will of the Olympians has to be obeyed. After all, if a king defies the gods then where does his own authority come from? To teach you the meaning of obedience, therefore, Athena has set rebellion into the hearts of your crew – all but Eperitus, whom she gave to you long ago as a friend and guardian, and a handful of others. The rest will remain disobedient unto the end, whenever or whatever that may be. What is more, she will turn their loyalties to your royal cousin, Eurylochus.’
‘That oaf?’ Eperitus exclaimed. ‘Not even a fool would follow him.’
‘The gods often make fools of men,’ she retorted. ‘But whatever opposition Eurylochus offers you, Odysseus, you are not to kill him.’
‘I may not like the man, Theano, but I would never stoop to murdering him.’
‘Never? Not even if he stands between you and your return to Ithaca?’
Odysseus did not answer, but let his gaze fall to the rubble at the priestess’s feet.
‘All the same, Athena will make him a thorn in your flesh, a constant reminder of your rebellion against her. You are commanded not to kill him, maroon him, chain him up or restrict his freedom in anyway, for through him she will test your loyalty to her. Do you understand?’ The king nodded and Theano continued. ‘But the greatest obstacles you will face are already inside you. You have become a liar, a thief and a murderer. Where is the home-loving king of a modest country now? Where is the husband and father that set sail ten years ago? You have lost yourself, Odysseus, and for a while it will be your fate to be lost from the world, both in body and name. But not forever.’
‘Then, when friends and fortune have departed from you, you will rise again from the dead,’ Odysseus said, quoting the words of the Pythoness given to him two decades before. ‘So I’m to be forsaken then, by heaven, my crew, even by myself.’
Theano shook her head. ‘You may have lost the goddess’s protection, Odysseus, but she still favours you. In time she will forgive you, and for that you should be grateful. Many of the other kings have offended the gods and will pay for it with their lives. And though she has cursed your men to disobedience, she may yet send you help in unlooked for places. But have you forgotten Eperitus? Athena once told him to follow you to the ends of the Earth, and he has not let you down yet.’
‘Nor will I,’ Eperitus replied. ‘Even if every last man in the army turns their back on the king, I won’t.’
‘It’s true Athena has spared you from her curse,’ Theano said, ‘but disobedience does not have to be imposed by the gods. Many things can provoke it, and you are ignorant of the tests that lie ahead. Have you also forgotten that you have other loyalties, now, in Astynome?’
Her words raised a question Eperitus had not considered before: if he had to choose between his friend and his lover, where would his first allegiance lie? It was impossible t
o answer until he was faced with the choice, and he offered a silent prayer to Athena that he never would be.
‘Here,’ Theano said, moving to the edge of the plinth and beckoning to Odysseus. ‘Give me that.’
Odysseus pulled the sack away to reveal the charred, misshapen lump that had caused him such trouble. He approached the plinth and passed the Palladium to Theano, who gathered it quickly but reverently in her arms. She placed it atop a mound of rubble where its wooden cradle had once been. Then, bowing her head and raising her arms in supplication to the goddess, she began to pray.
Odysseus stepped away and watched her for a moment. Perhaps he was pondering the strange outcome of his decision to defy Athena and steal the Palladium, Eperitus thought. Though his disobedience had advanced the end of the war, possibly by many years, he had lost any hope of a smooth journey home. But was he doomed not to see his beloved Ithaca for another ten years, or would he overcome the challenges without and within himself and find a swift way back? And what of those whose fates were tied up with their king’s? Eperitus only knew that all things were possible with Odysseus, and for his own part he would do whatever it took to get his friend, the fleet and Astynome back to Ithaca.
‘Come with us, Theano,’ Odysseus said, as the old woman finished her prayer and laid her chin on her chest in silence. ‘Our route will pass the mouth of the Eurotas, which leads up to Sparta. We’ll be able to return you to Antenor and your sons, if that’s where Menelaus was taking them.’
Theano shook her head.
‘Thank you, but my place is here in Athena’s temple, ruin though it is. Antenor will understand; he has known me long enough. Make sure you come to understand, too, Odysseus. Put the gods first and everything else will come after.’