by Glyn Iliffe
Odysseus tore a strip from the bottom of Elpenor’s cloak.
‘Raise your arms,’ he said, and began winding the cloth about Eperitus’s abdomen. ‘I’ll take you down to Circe and her maids; they have lotions that will heal your wounds quickly.’
‘Is it true?’ Eperitus asked. ‘Did you sleep with Circe again?’
‘Whatever I’ve done has been out of necessity. Let that be an end to it.’
‘Do you ask me as my friend,’ Eperitus asked, ‘or command me as my king?’
‘Whichever you will respect enough not to ask me that question again.’
Behind them, Elpenor stirred and let out a groan. Immediately, Odysseus seized his tunic and dragged him to the edge of the roof. Kneeling down beside him, he slapped him hard across the cheek.
‘Who sent you to kill me?’
Elpenor smiled through the blood that had dried over his face.
‘One who wants your throne.’
Odysseus tightened his grip on Elpenor’s tunic and lifted him up so that they were almost nose to nose.
‘Tell me and you’ll live; refuse once more and I’ll throw you from this roof, just as you intended to do to me.’
‘He’s unarmed, Odysseus,’ Eperitus said. ‘You can’t murder him in cold blood. He should stand trial before the rest of the crew –’
‘They’re to know nothing of this. An open trial will just give Eurylochus an excuse to question my leadership, and I don’t want him stirring up rebellion again or making Elpenor out to be a martyr. Now, tell me who sent you.’
‘I’ll answer you if you tell Eperitus where you’re sailing to,’ Elpenor answered, still grinning. ‘Or don’t you think his loyalty is up to the test?’
His mocking tone angered Odysseus, who raised his hand to strike him again. The boy winced, but when the blow did not come he opened his eyes and stared at the king in defiance.
‘What’s he talking about?’ Eperitus asked. ‘Where are you taking us?’
‘To the Underworld,’ Odysseus replied, his voice almost a whisper.
‘To…?’
The words fell dead before they had formed in Eperitus’s mind. The Underworld. He recalled the time twenty years before when his soul should have been ushered there. With Damastor’s fatal knife wound in his chest, he had watched Hermes coming for him, knowing then that he would spend eternity in the Chambers of Decay. Athena’s intervention had saved him, restoring his soul to his body and reviving him to life. But he had never forgotten that fear of Hades. It was a fear his subconscious had to conquer every time he faced battle, and it was a fear that touched his conscious mind now.
Odysseus’s eyes lingered on him for a moment, then returned to Elpenor.
‘Who sent you?’
‘You’ll let me live?’
‘You have my word.’
‘Eupeithes. It was Eupeithes. He wants your throne for his son, and in return for your life he offered me his daughter’s hand and my father a position on the new Kerosia. I… I didn’t care about marrying his daughter. I only did it out of obedience to my father. You understand that?’
Perhaps it was the hope his life would be spared that broke Elpenor, for the courage that he had shown in his fight with Eperitus had evaporated and all that remained in its place was an instinct for self-preservation. Eperitus could see him shaking.
‘I understand loyalty to a father,’ Odysseus answered. He gave Elpenor an inquisitive smile and laid his hands gently on either side of his head, stroking his hair. ‘And I thought you were just a poor drunk.’
‘You’re not the only one who can spill wine down his beard, my lord.’
Elpenor gave a nervous laugh. In the same moment, Odysseus’s grip tightened and with a sharp twist of his hands he snapped the assassin’s neck. Eperitus stepped forward but saw the light had already left Elpenor’s eyes. The king looked up at him, challenging him to speak, but Eperitus knew Odysseus was beyond listening to him.
‘What do we tell the others?’
‘Let them work it out for themselves,’ Odysseus replied, and rolled the body over the edge of the roof to land with a thump on the lawn below. ‘Now, let’s get you down to Circe before anyone else can see your wounds. You’ll keep them bandaged and hidden beneath your armour until they’re healed. Astynome can change the bandages, but she’s not to say a word to anyone.’
‘And the Underworld? Is this something you’re set on?’
‘Yes, if we want to find our way home to Ithaca. We sail this afternoon.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
PERSEPHONE’S GROVE
The tears were rolling down Astynome’s eyes as she sat facing Eperitus under the eaves of the forest. The noon sun was high and hot and it seemed the flowers in Circe’s garden had never looked so beautiful, and yet Eperitus’s heart was filled with cold, dark despair. Beneath his breastplate his heavily wrapped chest stung where Elpenor’s sword had twice nearly taken his life. He had not yet told Astynome about the fight on the roof and Elpenor’s treachery, though the body had already been found by one of Circe’s maids.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ Astynome said.
He reached out and took her hand. It was cold and he could feel it shaking even as he held it.
‘I must. Circe has said it’s the only way; that Teiresias alone can tell us how to get back to Ithaca.’
‘I don’t trust her. My father is a priest: he says the spirits of the dead cannot talk.’
‘Then he’s been to the Underworld too?’ Eperitus smiled as he spoke – hoping to lighten the mood – but Astynome merely brushed away more tears. ‘Odysseus says Persephone granted Teiresias’s soul the ability to speak.’
He looked across the glade to Circe’s house. Several Ithacans were sitting on the lawn or talking quietly in pairs. Most looked forlorn; many had their heads in their hands or stared vacantly into nothing. Omeros sat on the porch, his eyes red from his grief at Elpenor’s death. Polites sat beside him with his giant arm across his shoulders.
‘They say Heracles went to Hades, Orpheus too, and that both men came back alive.’
‘And what sort of men were they when they returned, Eperitus? Do the stories tell us that? What does it do to a man to witness what the gods have devised for him when he dies? It will turn your mind, I know it.’
‘I’m stronger than that, Astynome. And perhaps it will make me cherish the living world more. Even now I can look at you and know there’s nothing more I want than to spend every remaining day of my life with you.’
He kissed her hand and she smiled, though the happy glimmer was short-lived.
‘And Elpenor’s death. It has to be an omen, Eperitus.’
‘It isn’t an omen, that’s one thing I’m sure of.’
‘Why won’t Odysseus bury or cremate him? Is he in such a hurry to leave that he can’t even give one of his shipmates his burial rites?’
‘He doesn’t want to waste any time,’ Eperitus said. ‘None of us knows the way to Hades, only that we should go with the north wind in our sail and look for a landing place marked by black poplars. That’s as much as Circe can tell us. And when I return, you and I will be married. I know we said we would wait until we reached Ithaca, but can either of us say for certain whether that day will ever come? Maybe the thought of being joined with you will give me the courage I need to overcome this darkness.’
She took his hand in both of hers and kissed it. Then she looked at him, and despite her red eyes and the tracks of her tears on her brown cheeks, he could see again the youthful beauty he had fought for that day less than two years ago in Lyrnessus.
‘You will overcome it,’ she said. ‘And when you return we will be married here in this glade before Circe’s home, with wolves and lions for guests, and… and what if you don’t return?’
Her brief smile disappeared and she covered her face with her hands and wept. He took her in his arms, concerned that the inner strength he so admired her for seemed to have deserte
d her. As he comforted her, he heard Odysseus’s voice calling for him. He looked up and saw the king waving to him from the porch.
‘Come on, Eperitus, it’s time.’
The rest of the Ithacans were gathering on the lawn, silent and stern as they prepared themselves for the voyage ahead.
‘I have to go now, Astynome,’ Eperitus told her. ‘Be strong. I’ll be back soon, I promise.’
She met his gaze and he could see that her familiar resolve had returned.
‘There’s something I must tell you, Eperitus. I wasn’t going to say anything until you came back, because I didn’t want to put doubt in your mind. But now I think you have a right to know. If you are to go to that place – and if you don’t return – I don’t want you to go without knowing that you are going to be a father.’
They sailed all day under a sky as grey as wet slate. The sun’s face showed just once, at sunset as it passed between the ceiling of cloud and the distant horizon; a momentary glimpse before it plunged into the ocean in a blaze of gold and was extinguished. Complete darkness followed rapidly, though Odysseus ordered they maintain their course with a full sail. After some time a fog appeared and Eperitus was called forward to the prow to join Odysseus. He leaned against the curved bow rail and looked out at the grey mist that shrouded the galley. It looked as if they were floating on a bed of white vapour.
‘I’d hoped you would’ve joined me earlier,’ Odysseus said. ‘A bit of company might have made the voyage pass quicker. It doesn’t help any of us to sit alone and dwell on what lies ahead. We have to go and so we might as well face up to it.’
‘Aren’t you afraid then?’ Eperitus asked.
‘More than any man on this ship. I’m in terror at the thought of what we will see, and even more so at what we might hear. It’s one thing for Teiresias to tell us the way home, but what if he says the throne now belongs to Eupeithes, or that Penelope has remarried, or Telemachus is dead?’
Eperitus placed a calming hand on his shoulder.
‘You’re right, we shouldn’t think about what lies ahead. As for Eupeithes, he’s burned his fingers once already trying to take Ithaca for himself. You can be sure he won’t dare do anything while there’s a chance you could reappear any day with a fleet and an army under your command.’
‘Some fleet,’ Odysseus said, glancing back at the crew sitting silently on their benches.
‘He doesn’t know that. And if he’s expecting Elpenor to have succeeded in his task then he’ll be in for a shock when you turn up. As for Penelope and Telemachus, I’m sure they’re safe and well.’
‘Well that’s good to know,’ Odysseus mocked. ‘Perhaps you can prophesy the way back to Ithaca, too, and save us the need to visit the Underworld.’
Eperitus smiled. ‘Can any course I guess at take us anywhere worse than the Land of the Dead?’
He leaned his weight on the bow rail and looked at the milky layer of mist beneath the bows. He was as scared as Odysseus about the thought of entering the Underworld – if indeed they could find the entrance to a place of such dark legend – but he was less afraid of entering than he was of the thought he might not leave again. He did not possess the strength and determination of Heracles nor the magical lyre of Orpheus, and it seemed to him that no ordinary mortal could enter Hades’s kingdom without first surrendering his life. And the thought that he might never return to Astynome or see their child filled him with dread. He could face the dead, but he could not face losing the living.
After a while he detected a new odour amid the familiar concoction of brine, livestock and stale sweat. He raised his nose and took a deep breath. Rotten eggs. The unpleasant smell made him wrinkle his nostrils, but he was soon able to detect wet stone, earth and vegetation – all signs of land. The sound of wind whistling through rocky crevasses and waves crashing against a sandy shore confirmed it.
‘We’re near now,’ he told Odysseus.
The king shouted back instructions to lower the sail and man the oars. If they were approaching an unknown shore, it would be at as near to their own speed as possible. For the first time in the voyage the crew began to chatter, though the tone was one of apprehension rather than excitement. Odysseus shouted for silence. Before much longer Eperitus was able to hear the wind whispering through the branches of unseen trees. It sounded like the unintelligible muttering of distant voices.
‘Stop rowing,’ he ordered.
The splash of the oars ceased at once and was followed by the trickle of water dripping from the blades. He gave a nod to Odysseus, who called for the anchor stone to be tossed overboard and for the small boat to be made ready. The plop of the anchor was followed by the flap of bare feet and the clatter of the wooden rowing boat being dragged across the benches and lowered over the side. Odysseus turned and signalled to Eurylochus, Perimedes, Omeros and three others on the front bench. They had been chosen by lot to accompany Odysseus and Eperitus to the Underworld, and their ashen faces showed the strain of fear that was upon them. Eurylochus and Perimedes untied the ram and the black ewe that were to be sacrificed to the dead, while the others carried the offerings of honey, milk, wine, water and barley. Without any word of parting to their comrades, they clambered down into the boat and rowed slowly through the mist towards the unseen shore.
A line of high black cliffs loomed up out of the mist ahead of them. The one sound that had been absent to Eperitus’s ears as they approached had been the cawing of seagulls, and none were to be seen anywhere, either nestled among the crags of the cliff walls or floating on the air currents above them. A long shoreline of black sand emerged from the fog and they guided the prow of the little boat towards it, pulling it up the beach as soon as it struck. They secured it beneath the curtain-like branches of one of the willow trees that lined the foot of the cliffs and, wrapping their cloaks about themselves against the numbing cold, lit a pair of torches. With the light of the flames gleaming back from the jagged cliffs, they trudged along the shoreline in search of the poplar trees that marked the entrance to Hades’s kingdom. Eperitus saw them first, tall and black like giant gateposts rising up from the mist. Soon they were visible to the rest of the party and he heard Eurylochus break into hushed sobs behind him. For once he pitied the man. Odysseus, though, showed only the briefest hesitation before pressing on. They entered the crescent of trees one by one and stood staring up at the fissure in the cliff face before them. The torchlight extended but a short distance into the cave, shimmering back at them from the tumble of boulders within.
‘Is this it?’ Omeros asked. His voice fell dead and his breath clouded in the still, icy air. ‘Is this the entrance?’
‘This is it,’ Odysseus replied.
He raised his torch above his head and entered. Eperitus followed, his hand ready on the pommel of his sword, though he knew no weapon could help him where they were going. The stench of sulphur was powerful enough now to be noticed by the others, who wrinkled their noses in disgust. Within a short distance the walls of the cave had narrowed so much that they were forced to walk in single file with Odysseus holding the torch ahead of him. Eperitus had also become aware of a distant rushing sound, like whispers in a shell held to the ear. Worse still, he felt a black despair creeping into him, weighing on his thoughts and turning his limbs leaden. It was as if he was wading neck deep through water, each step a conscious struggle, each breath strained and heavy. He tried to remember Astynome’s face, to act as a torch against the darkness that was seeping into his mind, but he found he could not picture her at all. Instead he found his gloom deepening. He knew now he would never see her again. They would not marry in the glade on Aeaea, nor build a farm on Ithaca as they had planned. And he would never see their unborn child, for whoever enters the Underworld has no hope of returning to the land of the living.
Odysseus came to a sudden halt.
‘What is it?’
‘We’ve reached the back of the cave,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing here.’
&nbs
p; ‘What?’ Eperitus said. ‘That’s impossible. Circe told you the entrance was behind Persephone’s Grove. This has to be it.’
‘What’s that? There’s no entrance?’ Eurylochus asked behind them, his voice suddenly filled with hope. ‘Then we can’t enter?’
‘Silence!’ Odysseus ordered as the men began to talk in animated whispers. ‘Here, look for yourself.’
He squeezed aside and handed Eperitus the torch. By its dim light he could see a wall of rock before them. His spirit leapt within him as he realised that it was a dead end. Then he saw it: a darker blackness at the base of the cave wall that the light of the torch could not penetrate. He slumped to his knees and held the torch into the gap. It was a tunnel, just large enough for a man to crawl through. He felt a weak current of air fanning his face, like the breath of a dying man, and it carried with it the nauseating odour of sulphur. The faint rustling sound he had noticed before was clearer, too. As he strained his ears against the hiss of the torch he thought he could hear words, thousands of words uttered by hushed voices.
He looked back up at Odysseus.
‘It’s a tunnel, and –’
‘And?’
‘I can hear the voices of the dead.’
‘No! No more. I can’t go on.’
Eurylochus turned on Perimedes behind him and tried to push him back, clawing at his face when he did not move quickly enough. Perimedes, too, began to panic, lashing out at Eurylochus with his fist and hitting the rock wall with a shout of pain. Odysseus pulled out his sword and struck Eurylochus over the back of the head, bringing him down to the cave floor in a heap.
‘Take him outside and wait with him until we return,’ he told Perimedes, who was clutching his bloody fist in his armpit. ‘If the rest of you want to go back with them, I’ll not stop you.’
‘I can’t do it, my lord,’ said one of the others and lowered his bag of barley and skin of water to the cave floor. ‘I can’t go in there.’
He retreated back towards the cave opening, following the already diminishing light of Perimedes’s torch. The other two, infected by Eurylochus’s open display of cowardice, also turned and fled, leaving only Odysseus, Eperitus and Omeros. Between them they trussed up the animals and attached them to their ankles by ropes – along with the other offerings – which they would drag behind them as they crawled. Then, with heavy hearts, they entered the tunnel. Odysseus led, holding the torch at arm’s length before him, followed by Eperitus and then Omeros at the rear. For a short while they were able to move along on their hands and knees. Then the ceiling became gradually lower and the sides narrower, forcing them to move onto their stomachs and pull themselves along the hard, cold floor by their elbows. The way forward was now so tight that Eperitus felt the walls scraping at his arms and legs and catching the top of his head and shoulders. There was barely room for him to reach forward and pull himself along. He began to wonder what would happen if the tunnel led to a dead end. How would they get back out? He could hear Omeros behind him groaning with the struggle, and the small, frightened bleating of the black ewe that was tied to his own ankle. What if Omeros became too weak to carry on? What if he collapsed? Could he crawl out again, pushing Omeros, the ewe, the wineskin and all the other sacrifices before him with just his legs? He felt his breathing grow tighter and knew it was not just because of his leather armour or the thinner, more sulphurous air. He was starting to panic.