by Glyn Iliffe
‘Any time now,’ he said in a low voice.
‘What’s that, mouse?’ asked the herdsman, raising his head. His hair had fallen forward to cover much of his eye. ‘Mouse isn’t your name, though, is it. You must have a name, mouse.’
‘My name is my own.’
‘A guest must always state his name.’
‘But we aren’t playing by those rules, are we. I might give my name to a worthy host, but not to a savage who eats my men.’
The Cyclops sat up.
‘Savage, you say, am I? Then let’s follow the rules. Give me your name and I’ll give you the gift I promised.’
Eperitus watched Odysseus shake his head and felt a stab of annoyance. A warrior’s name was his greatest possession. For Odysseus to refuse to state his identity – to deny who he was – was a dishonour to himself and his family. Eperitus stepped forward and looked defiantly at the Cyclops.
‘If he won’t tell you then I will. He is –’
A large, hot hand closed over his mouth and pulled him back.
‘Nobody,’ Odysseus said. ‘I’m nobody.’
‘Nobody?’ the Cyclops asked. ‘What sort of name is Nobody?’
Eperitus, his mouth still covered by Odysseus’s hand, stared at his friend. Odysseus frowned back momentarily, then a familiar light entered his eyes.
‘Nobody is the name my father gave me,’ he said, ‘and it’s the name my mother and my friends call me by. Now, you promised me a gift.’
The Cyclops’s face was now ashen beneath his wild beard, and he held his hand gingerly to his stomach. After a moment he let out a belch that reverberated around the cave.
‘Your gift is this, Nobody,’ he answered scornfully, ‘that of all your party, I shall eat you last.’
And with that he toppled backwards into the carpet of soft dung, scattering the sheep and goats that had gathered in his shadow. With a mighty groan, he turned his head and vomited a thick slurry of wine and human flesh that spread in a dark pool over the floor. Then his head dropped back and at once he began snoring.
Eurylochus was dreaming of the lotus when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He brushed it away. If he could not have the lotus, then to dream of it was better than nothing.
The hand returned, this time accompanied by a voice.
‘Eurylochus.’
It belonged to a woman. Perhaps this was part of his dream.
‘Yes?’
The hand squeezed his shoulder gently.
‘Eurylochus, wake up.’
‘Who is it?’ he snapped.
‘Quiet, we don’t want the others to hear.’
He looked up. The act of opening his eyes increased the pounding in his head, but after a moment of sharp pain he began to see a tall figure dressed in white. The moon was behind her, creating a silver halo of her hair and silhouetting her body through the thin material of her chiton. It was Astynome.
He felt a sudden sense of panic. Why was she here? Had Odysseus and Eperitus returned? Did they know of his plan to take Astynome by force? He propped himself up on one elbow and blinked at the stars. Midnight was still some way off.
‘What do you want?’ he asked.
She knelt down beside him and placed her hand on his crotch, squeezing his genitals through the cloth.
‘I want you.’
He caught her face in the darkness, her large eyes pale and serious. She stood and – more by instinct than design – he reached up to touch her between her legs. She stepped away, laughing gently. Teasing him.
‘Not here,’ she whispered. ‘If Eperitus ever returns I don’t want the others to see and tell him. He’d kill us both.’
‘Then where?’
‘Follow me.’
She ran up the sloping shingle to the top of the beach, a silver figure in the moonlight. Eurylochus tossed aside his blanket, thought briefly about whether he should find Selagos and tell him, then ran after her.
She was not at the top of the ridge when he reached it. He listened for her, but there was nothing but the hiss of breakers and the gently snoring crew behind him. He ran on, clambering over the fallen rocks at the foot of the headland and avoiding the little pools that lay hidden between them. When he reached the other side of the promontory she was nowhere to be seen.
‘Go back, you fool,’ he told himself.
But his manhood disagreed. He looked again and saw something pale further along the beach.
‘What are you waiting for?’ she called.
‘Be quiet,’ he hissed back.
He felt suddenly uneasy, standing in the darkness on a strange coastline. Odysseus and the others had gone this way and not come back, he reminded himself. And yet his need for Astynome conquered all fear. He ran on, following the phantom figure and wondering when she would think they were far enough away from the rest of the crew to be safe. He was soon out of breath, but she kept stopping and silently beckoning for him to follow. Perhaps she, too, had sensed the change in atmosphere. As if they were not alone. Eventually she disappeared into the shadows beneath a neck of woodland that ran down from the hills above.
It was then he realised she had no intention of sleeping with him, but was leading him away from the camp. Perhaps she had guessed what he would do to her if Eperitus did not return and intended to murder him out of sight of any witnesses. He felt for the dagger in his belt and gripped it tightly. He could go back for Selagos, of course, but by the time they returned there was no certainty they would find Astynome again. Besides, she was just a woman. If she wanted to kill him then he would pay her in kind. But first he would take what he had wanted from the first moment he had set eyes on her.
He ran to the wood and found a broad path through the trees. Something about the place warned him to turn back, but his anger and lust spurred him on. The path was steep and soon had him breathing hard. He began to wonder whether he might have missed Astynome going back the other way in the darkness. Then the night was split by a dreadful, unearthly scream. That it had not erupted from the lungs of an animal was clear. But neither had it come from a man or woman. Within moments, answering shouts came from the hills above and were followed by a heavy thudding that shook the ground beneath his feet. Eurylochus ran into the undergrowth at the side of the path and leapt behind the trunk of a fallen tree.
Eperitus fixed his eyes on the vomit puddled around the Cyclops’s head. Among the morsels of flesh was a hand with the middle and forefingers missing. The horrible reminder of Antiphus’s death drained Eperitus of his energy. He slumped onto all fours in the dung and hung his head, letting his dark emotions slip over him like a shadow. For a while he was aware of nothing but the black hole that his friend’s loss had left behind. Then he felt a hand on his back.
‘Now isn’t the time to succumb to our grief, Eperitus,’ Odysseus said. ‘Not yet. First we must deal with the monster and make sure he can’t kill again. Do you understand?’
Eperitus inhaled deeply and sat up.
‘You’re right.’
He looked about him. Polites was kneeling with his face in his hands; Omeros stood beside him, his arm about the huge warrior’s shoulders. Elpenor was further back, pale-faced and silent, staring fixedly at the sleeping Cyclops. The other two were half-hidden in the shadows. Epistor had been with the army from the first and was openly sobbing; Perimedes, a Taphian replacement, was quiet but visibly shaken.
‘Omeros, you’ll take Antiphus’s place,’ Odysseus told him. ‘Go tell Perimedes he’s to replace Drakios. Do it now.’
‘Let me stand in for Drakios,’ Elpenor said.
Odysseus eyed him warily.
‘I need a man who can control his fear.’
‘I’m not afraid.’
‘Then you’re a fool,’ Eperitus said. ‘This job needs courage, not recklessness.’
‘Elpenor will be alright,’ Omeros defended him. ‘We’ll fetch the pole now.’
Odysseus nodded and they slipped away into the shadows.
‘A
moment’s nervousness from him and we’ll all be killed,’ Eperitus said.
‘I know.’
‘Then let me take the front.’
‘Because you want to avenge Antiphus’s death? Or because you’d rather the Cyclops eats you than me if he wakes?’
‘I promised Athena I would protect you with my life,’ Eperitus reminded him, ‘and a king is more important than a warrior.’
‘Sometimes a king needs to take risks to prove he’s worthy of the title. Now is one of those times, my friend. I’ll take the head.’
As Omeros and Elpenor reappeared from the shadows, struggling beneath the weight of the pole, Odysseus sent Epistor and Perimedes to pull willow branches from the Cyclops’s bed at the back of the cave, which they were to weave into lengths of twine. Taking the head of the pole, and with the help of the others, he held the sharpened end over the fire. The wood was still green and quickly began to smoke. Eperitus glanced through the vapour at the sleeping monster and felt a pang of terror. He forced his eyes back to the tip of the stake, which by now was glowing red and threatening to catch fire.
‘That’ll do,’ Odysseus said, pulling it from the flames. He turned to the others and Eperitus could see his expression was edged with fear. ‘The time has come. Be brave, friends.’
They raised the head of the shaft and angled the white-hot tip at the Cyclops’s lidded eye. The dread weakened their limbs and seemed to double the weight of the stake, so that the five men struggled to lift it. Then someone’s hold slipped and the wooden beam dropped to the floor with a clatter that echoed off the cave walls. Eperitus looked round and saw Omeros standing back, while Polites and Elpenor were bending down and struggling to lift the pole back up.
‘He’s waking,’ Odysseus warned. ‘Quickly!’
The great lid of the Cyclops’s eye quivered like a sail in the wind, then rolled up to reveal the hateful orb beneath. The four Ithacans, joined after a moment by Omeros, lifted the pole high under their arms. The eye was now staring directly at them, and in that moment Odysseus led his men forward, sinking the tip into its black pupil. The aqueous fluid hissed and bubbled around the scorching wood, followed by jets of blood as Odysseus twisted the point deeper into the wound. Then the Cyclops let out a terrible scream and jerked upwards, tearing the impaled stake from the hands of his attackers and scattering them across the floor. He leapt to his feet and, with a bellow that warped the air about Eperitus’s ears, plucked the shaft from his eye and hurled it across the cave.
Everything was now in uproar. The sheep and goats scattered in bleating panic and the Ithacans ran with them into the furthest corners of the Cyclops’s lair. Above them the monster whirled like a giant oak in a tempest, shrieking with pain and crushing his beloved animals underfoot as he stumbled blindly from one wall of the cave to another. For long, terrifying moments his fingers tore at the rock in a futile attempt to pull himself out of his suffering, all the time his shouts echoing wildly about the cowering Ithacans. After a while Eperitus heard another sound through the noise of the monster’s distress. It came from outside the cave and at first was like the roaring of the sea. Then he felt the thud of heavy footsteps and heard horrible voices calling out a name.
‘Polyphemus! Polyphemus!’
‘Do you hear that?’ Elpenor asked. ‘There are voices in the wind. The others have come to save us.’
‘Those aren’t the voices of men,’ Polites said.
‘They’re Cyclopes,’ Odysseus said, ‘come down from the hilltops to see what’s happening to their friend – if these creatures can be said to have friends.’
‘Then you’ve killed us all,’ Elpenor exclaimed. ‘Your plan to set us free has doomed the lot of us.’
‘Be quiet, boy,’ Eperitus admonished him with a scowl. ‘We were dead anyway.’
‘Polyphemus!’ a voice boomed, directly outside the cave entrance.
The Cyclops’s wailing – now as much the result of self-pity as his pain – stopped, and he turned to face the sound of the voice.
‘What’s all this shouting about?’ asked another. ‘Are you being attacked, Polyphemus? Only a Cyclops could cause another Cyclops to cry out so.’
‘It’s Nobody!’ Polyphemus bellowed. ‘Nobody attacked me.’
He fell to his knees, threw both hands over his destroyed eye and began to sob loudly. Eperitus could hear the voices mumbling beyond the rock slab that sealed the cave.
‘Who’s in there with you?’
‘Nobody! Don’t leave me here with him.’
‘What are you talking about? You drag us from our women’s sides with your shouting and screaming, only to tell us you’re alone! You’re sick, that’s what –’
The voice paused and a tense silence fell over the Cyclopes beyond the cave entrance, as if they were listening to something. Then they began to speak hurriedly, and Eperitus could hear their footsteps as they ran off.
‘Go to bed, Polyphemus,’ one of them called over his shoulder. ‘You’ll feel better in the morning.’
‘Come back,’ he shouted.
Seizing hold of the stone slab, he heaved it aside with a grunt and called after them again.
But they were gone.
Astynome was watching Eurylochus from behind the bole of a tree when the still night air was torn open by a scream. Long and horrible it was, like the cry of an animal in terrible pain. But there was something monstrous about it, too, that stiffened her flesh and filled her with dread. Booming shouts arose in response from the ridge above, and moments later the trees began to shake as if Poseidon’s anger was stirring the ground beneath their roots. It took all her courage to turn and run away from the path into the undergrowth. More tortured screams came from the beach below, though muffled as if the lost souls of Hades had found a single voice for their agony. They were answered by more yells, closer this time, and as Astynome glanced over her shoulder she glimpsed giant figures running down the sloping path, their heads lost in the foliage.
She caught her foot on an upraised root and fell into a pile of leaves. Her fingers dug into the damp soil, imagining that at any moment a huge hand would reach down and pluck her up. She wanted to bury herself beneath the leaves and pray that some god would conceal her from the eyes of the creatures she had seen through the trees. But she knew it was a false hope. Quickly, before the temptation to hide became too much, she pushed herself up and ran on.
‘Astynome!’
She turned and saw Eurylochus, barely discernable in the thin moonlight that filtered down through the trees. He was some way off, at the edge of the path, but she caught the gleam of the blade in his hand.
‘Astynome, where are you going?’
She looked back up the slope, through the trees to the crest of the ridge where she had seen the fires the evening before. After overhearing Eurylochus’s plot to rape her, she had planned to lead him up to the fires in the hope he would be captured or killed by the figures she had seen silhouetted by the flames. Knowing now that the giant shadows they had cast into the night air had not been exaggerated, she hesitated at the thought of going any further. Briefly she wondered whether Eperitus had stumbled on the fires and been killed by the creatures that had made them. Then Eurylochus began jogging towards her and she knew she had no choice. She turned and ran up the slope.
‘Astynome!’
His voice was a hissed whisper but carried sharply through the night air. Reaching the eaves of the wood she saw wooden pens at the brow of the ridge, filled with sheep. They bleated gently, still unsettled by the earlier disturbance. In the cliff face behind were the dark mouths of caves. Some were giant fissures that leaned to the left or right, others were holes delved deep into the rock behind. There was no sign of movement so she stumbled on over the slippery grass. Reaching the ridge she saw that a narrow plateau separated her from the caves. It was dotted with more animal pens and the remains of several large fires, but there was no sign of the shepherds. A path led from the caves into the treeline to
her left. Knowing it would take her back down to the beach, she began running towards it, cursing the long dress that hampered her movements.
Then she saw Eurylochus sprinting up the slope to intercept her, the dagger still in his hand. She tried to turn and run back to the trees but lost her footing on the wet grass. He was on her in a moment, seizing her arm and pulling her back to her feet.
‘So you thought you would lure me up here did you?’ he gasped, still trying to catch his breath. ‘To be murdered by whoever lives in these caves.’
‘You saw the size of them. If they find us here they’ll kill us both.’
‘I saw nothing, though I heard them. And I’ll hear them coming back, too. But before they do you’re going to give me what you promised.’
‘Eperitus will kill you.’
‘If he does there’ll be a full-blown mutiny. Is that what you want?’
‘You overestimate your own importance,’ she said.
‘The men are sick of Odysseus and you know it. I’m the only one keeping them in check, so if you want to keep the peace then give me what I want.’
‘I’d die before I’d let you have your way with me.’
She tried to strike him, but her anger lacked conviction and he laughed at her, knowing his words had planted seeds of doubt in her mind. She had seen the discontent among the Ithacans and guessed at the thin veneer of Odysseus’s power. Perhaps Eurylochus really was the only barrier between the king’s authority and rebellion. Or perhaps Odysseus and Eperitus were dead and none of this mattered anyway.
Then a figure emerged from the cave behind Eurylochus. It was larger than Polites and had the silhouette of a man, though Astynome sensed it was not human. As the moon emerged from the cloud that had been hiding it, she saw the features of its face and threw her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
Eurylochus spun round in panic and saw the young Cyclops. He let out a cry of terror as it stumbled towards him, and he lashed out with his dagger, severing three fingers from its lumpish hand.