The Voyage of Odysseus (The Adventures of Odysseus Book 5)

by Glyn Iliffe

  Astynome had nodded and put her arm around his shoulders.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. We’ve seen too much bloodshed in our lives. Let the time for warriors be over and the time for farmers begin. But now I must go back to Circe’s maids. They’ll have my bath ready and be laying out the wedding clothes on the bed.’

  ‘Wait,’ he commanded.

  She turned and he caught her by the waist, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. She pulled away and tried to give him a chiding look.

  ‘It’s bad luck to kiss a bride before she’s married! Wait until this evening and you can kiss me as much as you like – and wherever you like.’

  As he watched her run back into the woods he thanked the gods that she was his. The Underworld still weighed heavily on his spirit and had left him haunted by dark thoughts. He had witnessed the emptiness of eternity and it had changed him. But she was the antidote to its slow poison. Without her, everything would be pointless.

  A cough startled him from his thoughts. He heard the men shuffling on their chairs and the first notes as Omeros tested the strings of his lyre. Eperitus took a deep breath and straightened himself, staring directly at the doors in the portico before him. His stomach muscles tightened horribly. Then Omeros began to play, and for a moment the music cleansed him of all thoughts. Suddenly he felt the brightness of the sun again and smelled the sweet flowers. How a man who had experienced the despair of the Land of the Dead could find such beauty in his heart he did not know, but as Omeros’s fingers stroked the strings, Eperitus felt his own burden lifted. He fought the tears – of joy? of relief? – and turned to see two figures behind him on the lawn. One was Odysseus, short, muscular and top-heavy. Circe’s nymphs had dressed him in a blue tunic and patched and repaired the double cloak Penelope had given him so that it looked newly made. His red hair was tied back behind his neck and he appeared more kingly than Eperitus had seen him look in a long time. But he paid only brief attention to Odysseus. Hanging on his arm was a tall figure in a slim-fitting chiton with a red sash about her waist. Flowers had been threaded into her black hair and she held a bouquet of white lilies in her hand. Her eyes were looking down at the grass beneath her bare feet and for a moment she seemed frail and afraid. Then she looked up and the tears he had fought back at the sound of Omeros’s playing now defeated him. Every eye was on Astynome, so none but she saw him dash them away.

  She smiled and, with a glance at Odysseus, walked slowly towards him.

  Odysseus looked at Eperitus and Astynome, sitting in the chairs that until then he and Circe had occupied. An outsider might easily have thought they had been married for years, not just a day. At one point he noticed Eperitus place a hand tellingly on Astynome’s stomach. She brushed it away discreetly and looked around to see if anyone had noticed, forcing Odysseus to avert his eyes quickly. It was then he caught Eurylochus staring at Astynome, the gleam of hatred and desire in his eyes. The poor fool, he thought. Does he really think she would consider him, even now?

  The notion jarred him back to the darkness of the Underworld and the sight of Agamemnon’s apparition, dripping blood as it spoke of marital betrayal and murder. Is Penelope the woman you believed her to be? Or is she even now in the arms of another man? It was a question that had troubled him from the moment he had crawled back into the narrow tunnel that led back to the Grove of Persephone. And why not? He had betrayed her, he reminded himself, even if it had broken his heart to do so. Why should she sleep alone while he spent ten years fighting in a foreign land? Even if she had kept their bed pure for all that time, why should she continue when all the other kings had returned to Greece and he had not? Don’t forget she’s of the same unfaithful line as Helen and Clytaemnestra, he heard Agamemnon’s voice repeating in his head.

  Odysseus drank his wine through gritted teeth. He was angrier with himself for doubting her than he was at the idea she would have betrayed him. Had not the ghost of his own mother reassured him of Penelope’s fidelity? If he was to worry about matters at home he should think of his poor father, grieving for his lost son, and Telemachus, still too young to stand up against the schemes of Eupeithes. Anticleia had warned him that the old snake was casting his gaze on the throne once more, an ambition that had been confirmed by Elpenor’s confession before Odysseus had broken his neck. And if Eupeithes had dared send Elpenor to kill him while the war was still raging, how much closer to maturity would his plans be now?

  Odysseus took a deep breath and began drumming his bitten nails on the table, cursing the fact his family and his kingdom were in peril while he wasted time on a feast in his lover’s house. He wanted to leave now, but he knew he could not. Only Circe knew the way home, and though she was sitting beside him he could barely bring himself to speak to her. She had sent him to Hades’s Halls on a false promise, just because she wanted to test his love for Penelope. Had he not made that clear enough already? Of course not, he heard Eperitus’s voice answer him. He had slept with Circe when there had been no need; naturally she would question his love for another woman. If she had sent him to the place where no living man should go then he only had himself to blame.

  ‘Eperitus is fortunate,’ Circe said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. ‘Astynome will prove a good wife. And a good mother.’

  He looked at her. ‘Then you know.’

  ‘I probably knew before he did. I’m happy for them. They were meant to be together, unlike us.’

  ‘I’m sorry you thought we could ever –’

  ‘Don’t! I’d rather you didn’t say it.’

  Odysseus took another swallow of wine, keeping his eyes on Eperitus and Astynome.

  ‘Did you really have to send me to Hades to prove I didn’t love you?’

  ‘Do you have to say it, Odysseus? Do you enjoy being cruel to me after all I’ve done for you?’

  ‘This is not a game, Circe!’ he retorted, managing to keep his voice low enough not to gain the attention of others. ‘You sent me to the Underworld to prove something a real woman should have been able to work out for herself. But that’s your problem. You’re not a real woman, are you? You’re immortal. The Underworld means nothing to you. But do you understand what going there has done to me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Odysseus. I didn’t think.’

  He laughed ironically. ‘The gods and their kind never do. It’s just a game to you, and mortals like me and Eperitus are the pawns.’

  ‘That is our prerogative,’ she answered sharply, ‘and unless you think that by spurning my advances you are now my equal, I would not tempt my anger.’ Her white skin had turned pink at the cheeks, but the hardness in her green eyes quickly softened again. ‘We should not argue, not on our last evening together.’

  Her words took him by surprise. They had not spoken about parting since his return and he had not known how to tell her that he intended to leave the next morning.

  ‘Yes, I know. I may be immortal, but it doesn’t mean I can’t read a man’s eyes. If I’m honest, I knew you wouldn’t stay the first time you took me. Even though I drugged your wine to make you forget your home, I still hoped you would be mine of your own free will. And now I know that will never be the case. But I do not hate you for it, Odysseus. Indeed, I love you, and for that reason I will tell you how to find your way back to Ithaca.’

  He reached out and took her hand. It was more than he had hoped for to have her reveal his homeward route, and he had not known how he might otherwise coax it from her. He had already promised himself he would not share her bed.

  ‘Thank you, my lady. I’m glad we can part friends.’

  ‘I wish it could be otherwise, but I’m not a fool. When you find Ithaca, maybe you will remember me when you’re in Penelope’s arms again. I don’t mean as a lover, but as a benefactor. For if I had refused, you would have wandered through this netherworld – as you think of it – without ever finding your way home.’

  ‘Then how do we get back?’

  Circe gla
nced at the Ithacans around them then, still holding Odysseus’s hand, pushed her chair back and stood.

  ‘Not here.’

  He followed her out onto the lawn, where several wolves and lions lay huddled together in their separate groups. The skies were clear but for a few skeins of cloud, silvered by the light of the half-moon that was rising over the treetops.

  ‘The route is not easy, Odysseus. Only a man of your intelligence and single-mindedness can overcome the perils on the way. First, you must sail with the sun behind you until you pass an island to the north. You will know it when you see it by the broken hulls of the many ships that have come to grief on its shores. Though you will be drawn there long before you see it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s the home of the Sirens,’ Circe said. ‘Terrible creatures to behold, but with voices so beautiful that no man can resist the sound of them. It is said the Sirens know all things that happen on the earth and in the sea and that they enchant passing sailors with news of the things closest to their hearts.’

  ‘Would they speak to me of events on Ithaca? Can they tell me about Penelope and Telemachus?’

  Circe frowned slightly at the mention of Odysseus’s family.

  ‘Don’t be fooled, Odysseus. The Sirens are not prophets; they are monsters. They use their voices to bewitch sailors and draw their ships onto the merciless rocks that surround their island. Those that survive provide meat for the Sirens, who leave their gleaming bones strewn over the hillside where they have their nest.’

  ‘Nest? What sort of creatures are they?’

  ‘That you must learn for yourself, but only from afar unless you want to share the fate of their other victims. To avoid that I will give you beeswax from my hives to plug up your ears and the ears of your men, so you can sail past in safety. After the Sirens you will reach a mass of land that is impassable except for in two places. The most perilous of these lies to the south and takes you into a channel between high cliffs. It is broad and easily navigable until you reach halfway, when you will come to the Wandering Rocks. Here the strait narrows to a point only wide enough for a single galley, but as soon as it falls beneath the shadow of the Wandering Rocks the sea rushes in like a wall and smashes both galley and crew to nothing. Only one ship has ever survived the passage, and her captain was under the protection of a goddess – something you, Odysseus, can no longer count on.’

  ‘And the other route?’

  ‘To the north lies a narrow, meandering channel that passes between high cliffs on both sides. After a while you will reach a wider body of water. To your left is a straight cliff and halfway along it you will see a large fig tree growing from a crag. Do not go that way, Odysseus. Instead you must steer your ship to the right where another wall of rock rises sheer from the sea. It is much taller than the cliff where the fig tree grows, even though it is only a bowshot away. Its summit is always shrouded in cloud, but at some distance above the surface of the water you will see a cavern. If you are determined to reach Ithaca, you must sail close beneath it, as near to the rocks as you dare.’

  ‘What’s in the cavern?’ Odysseus asked. ‘And why can’t I sail beneath the fig tree.’

  ‘It’s better that you don’t know.’

  But Odysseus was insistent. When Circe told him the answers to his question he stared at her horror-stricken.

  ‘Is there no other way?’ he asked.

  ‘None.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘You will come to the island of Thrinacie. No monsters live there, but it is as perilous a place as any I have described to you so far.’

  Odysseus recalled Teiresias’s warning about the cattle of the sun god, but said nothing.

  ‘Pass it by, Odysseus, and keep the prow of your ship towards the west. After some days you will come to Phaeacia, the happy island of King Alcinous that sits on the cusp between our world and yours. His people are great seafarers; if you can win his favour, he will order them to lead you back to your own home at last.’

  As she finished speaking, the door of the great hall opened and spilled yellow light over the porch. Eurybates and Polites staggered out arm in arm, singing raucously.

  ‘Odysseus!’ Eurybates shouted, spotting his king on the lawn. ‘So this is where you’ve disappeared to. Come back in and get drunk with the rest of us.’

  Polites lifted the wineskin in his hand and threw it to him. His aim was so bad it landed in the middle of the slumbering lions, one of which struck it with its paw. The leather split and the dark liquid sank quickly into the grass, to laughter from the two men on the porch.

  Odysseus turned to make his apologies to Circe, but she had gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  THE SIRENS

  Eperitus shielded his eyes from the sun and looked again. At this distance the bird was nothing more than a dark blur against the blue, cloudless sky, but he could see that it was larger than any seabird he knew of.

  ‘What is it?’ Odysseus asked, joining him at the prow.

  ‘An eagle, I think, but not like any I’ve seen before. And there’s something else, something about its shape that looks wrong.’

  Odysseus squinted beneath the cover of his own hand, but shook his head after a moment.

  ‘Circe said these Sirens had a nest. Birds live in nests.’

  ‘A monster bird?’ Eperitus said, smiling wryly. ‘We’ve faced worse. But I’ll repeat what I said to you this morning: she lied to us when she sent us to see Teiresias. Perhaps these Sirens and Wandering Rocks she told you about are another trick to keep you in her clutches.’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough, I suppose.’

  Eperitus!

  Eperitus turned in surprise.

  ‘What is it?’ Odysseus asked.

  Eperitus! Trust your instincts.

  He gripped the bow rail and looked out at the green sea. The voice had been as clear and as pure as a note from Omeros’s lyre, reaching deep into his heart so that the imprint of the words still lingered on in his mind.

  ‘Did you hear that, Odysseus? A voice in the air that said my name.’

  ‘All I can hear is the wind and the sound of the waves beating against the hull.’

  Trust your instincts about Circe. She is a liar and Odysseus is under her spell. He is not himself.

  ‘Do you still hear it?’ Odysseus asked. ‘The voice – can you still hear it?’

  She lied to him, Eperitus. Both routes she told him about will lead to destruction. She knows she cannot have him for herself, so she would rather see him dead – and the rest of you with him.

  ‘What did Circe tell you about the other passage, Odysseus? Not the Wandering Rocks, the other one.’

  ‘Land!’ Polites’s voice boomed out over the rushing wind and the flap of the sail. ‘Land to the north-west.’

  Eperitus looked up at the top of the mast where Polites had lashed himself with rope. Following the direction he was pointing in, he was able to distinguish a low, flat hump on the horizon. The rest of the crew had seen it too and began talking in loud, excited voices.

  ‘Omeros,’ Odysseus called, ‘bring me that lump of wax I gave you. Now! Polites, untie yourself and get down here at once.’

  There is only one safe route, Eperitus, the ringing voice told him. Or was it more than one voice, speaking in absolute harmony? Come to us if you want to live. Come to us and we will show you the way.

  Omeros presented Odysseus with the lump of beeswax, still wrapped in its cloth.

  ‘Quickly now, take your knife and cut the wax into pieces,’ the king ordered him. ‘Give two pieces to each man and tell them to soften them and put them in their ears. Polites will help you. And make sure they wrap cloth around their ears to keep the wax from falling out.’

  Omeros nodded and ran to where Polites was waiting. Odysseus turned and looked up at the sky.

  ‘There are two of them now,’ he said. ‘They’re the Sirens. I know it in my blood.’

  Epe
ritus followed his gaze and saw the birds, still far off as they circled each other high above the island. He could see now that they were brown with small white heads. At that distance even his eyesight could not make out anything in detail, but the heads seemed blunt, rather than pointed like an eagle’s.

  ‘Can you hear them, Eperitus? What are they saying?’

  ‘What is this passage Circe told you about?’ Eperitus insisted. ‘Is it dangerous? If it wasn’t, why would she even mention the other way through the Wandering Rocks?’

  The king hesitated just long enough for Eperitus to know he was preparing a lie.

  ‘She said nothing about danger. It’s narrow and there will be rocks beneath the surface, but little to worry about compared to the alternative. There is no alternative.’

  ‘What about the Sirens? Surely they would know the way. Circe says they are monsters, but she’s lied to you before –’

  Odysseus placed a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘She isn’t lying this time, I know it. Why would she?’

  ‘Because she can’t have you for herself, so she’d rather see you dead. All we need to do is sail closer to the island and see them for ourselves.’

  Odysseus looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Omeros, bring the wax here.’

  You see? said the voices. They were clearer now and the sound of them was as sweet as Hades had been bitter. There’s no reasoning with him. Circe has bewitched him. Only you can save the ship now, Eperitus. Only you can stop him leading you all to your deaths.

  He leaned against the bow rail again, staring hard at the island. The voices were at the edge of his hearing and still beyond the abilities of the others, but they were beautiful and powerful, filled with wisdom and the promise of salvation. The words touched his soul, unlocking feelings that had always been there but which years of self-discipline had suppressed. Emotions stirred inside him that freed his spirit from the shackles of the past: from the hateful memories of the death of Iphigenia, his father’s betrayal and the horrors of the war; even from the shadow of despair that had fallen on him in the Underworld and which he had thought he would never be free of. The source of the freedom, he knew, lay on the island he could see on the distant horizon. And then he realised this was the safe route the voices had spoken of: to dwell forever on the island with the Sirens, where there was no sorrow or strife, only peace and rest.