by Glyn Iliffe
Selagos approached with his father’s sword in both hands, ready to swing. Odysseus picked up a handful of grit by his foot and threw it at his face. As Selagos raised his arm before his eyes, Odysseus sprang up and ran at him. Selagos swung his sword blindly, but the aim was too high and Odysseus ducked under it. His shoulder caught the Taphian in the stomach, lifting him off his feet and carrying him at a sprint towards the cliff’s edge. As another wave hurled seawater up into the air, Odysseus and Selagos plummeted through the spray and down to the rocks below.
Evening fell quickly on Thrinacie. Somewhere beyond the howl of the wind Eperitus could hear the cows lowing and the sheep bleating as they wandered aimlessly from one place to another. He could smell their damp hides amid the stink of seawater and wet rock, and in the semi-darkness he could make out the twisted silhouettes of the few trees that grew on the island. But of Astynome or Eurylochus there was no sign.
‘Astynome!’ he shouted, his voice stolen by the gale and carried out to sea. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he called again. ‘Astynome!’
There was no reply, but a deeper instinct put his senses on edge. A noise, perhaps, or a movement caught out of the corner of his eye. He ran towards the cliff’s edge, battling against the wind until he reached a rocky outcrop. An olive tree had somehow fought its way out of the thin soil and established itself on the peak so that it faced the sea with its branches curled like an upturned fist. There at its roots he found Eurylochus.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded in surprise.
‘I’m sleeping!’ he said, pointing at the blanket covering his body. ‘Or I was until you woke me.’
‘Sleeping?’
‘It’s the only way to keep my mind off the hunger, unless you want to go and kill some of those blasted cattle and save us all from starvation. And before you ask I came here to get away from the noise of those children.’
‘Have you seen my wife? Selagos said she came this way looking for roots.’
‘Why would I have seen her?’ Eurylochus asked angrily, looking away. After a moment he threw off his blanket and rolled it up. ‘And if I had I’d have turned about and gone in the opposite direction.’
He stood and glared at Eperitus.
‘I’m going back to the camp. With any luck those slave children will be asleep by now. If I see her I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.’
Eperitus nodded. ‘Do that. And make sure she stays there until I return – please.’
Eurylochus responded with a curt nod and then hastened off. Finding a rough path along the cliff’s edge, Eperitus followed it until he topped a ridge that looked down over a small bay. Even in the dark he could see the white spray crashing against the rocks. Some way off he recognised the outline of an old tree that had been struck by lightning. On the ground nearby was a grey shape. At first he thought it was a flat rock, then he saw what could only be an outstretched hand clutching at the grass.
Fear clutched at his chest and throat. He sprinted the short distance to Astynome’s side and knelt beside her, gently rolling her onto her back and lowering his face to hers. The feel of her breath against his lips and the faint warmth of her cheeks beneath his fingertips filled him with sudden but momentary elation. Her eyes opened at his touch, and as she saw him tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks in thick streams. He raised her slowly in his arms and held her.
‘What happened? Gods, there’s blood on your forehead and your lips.’
The panic seized him again, but she raised a weak hand to his face and smiled.
‘I fell in the darkness. The rocks –’
‘And… and the child?’
Zeus protect our child, he implored, the words tumbling quickly through his head, drowning out his thoughts. Athena protect them both. Artemis, goddess of unborn children, don’t take this child like you took my other…
‘Safe, I’m sure of it.’
Even in the darkness Eperitus could tell Astynome had lost her colour. He picked her up and she leaned her head into his shoulder, covering her face with her hand. The journey back was agonisingly slow. A fine drizzle was falling, forcing him to step carefully over the wet rocks despite his need for haste. Tormenting thoughts that he might lose her filled his head, and his only solace was to feel the warmth of her body against his and the slight movements of her arm about his neck. When at last he saw the glow of the campfires and heard the conversation of the men – dulled by the lack of food and wine – he ran to the knot of Trojan women and laid Astynome on the sand between them.
‘Help her,’ he pleaded with the oldest, a woman whom Astynome had told him was a healer. ‘Save her life and I promise you your freedom when we reach Ithaca.’
The woman spoke quickly to some of the others who ran to fetch the things she needed. The Ithacans watched in silence from their campfires while she bent over Astynome, staring into her eyes and feeling her temperature with the back of her hand. Eurylochus and Selagos were nowhere to be seen and Odysseus had not yet returned from his prayers. Eperitus noticed their absence as a distraction only, staring at his wife’s pale face and feeling entirely helpless as he muttered prayers under his breath. After a while Eurybates appeared beside him.
‘Eperitus, come with me.’
‘No,’ he snapped.
‘You must. I wouldn’t ask,’ he said, nodding at Astynome, ‘but it’s Odysseus. He’s injured.’
Eperitus looked at him sharply, then, after receiving a nod from the old woman, stood and followed Odysseus’s squire.
‘He’s been in a fight.’
‘Who with? There isn’t another person on this island but us.’
Eurybates lowered his voice as they walked past the campfires.
‘Selagos tried to kill him.’
‘Selagos!’
Eurybates nodded and touched a finger to his lips.
‘In here,’ he said, pointing at Odysseus’s makeshift hut.
Eperitus ducked through the low doorway, followed by Eurybates. Odysseus was seated on a chair in the far corner. A beeswax candle on a small table provided the only light, but it was enough to show the king’s complexion was pale and both his eyes had started to blacken. Though he wore a fresh tunic and had wrapped a double cloak about his shoulders, his hair had been rubbed dry and there were cuts over his arms and legs.
‘You… you look terrible,’ Eperitus said.
‘I’m lucky to be alive. What happened to Astynome?’
‘She’s being cared for.’
‘I won’t keep you –’
‘I’m just a hindrance back there. It’s probably best I stay out of the way for a little while.’
‘But your heart’s with her,’ Odysseus said. ‘Perhaps you’ll let me come see her with you.’
‘You should rest. Is there anything I can do?’
‘I’d kill for some of Maron’s wine now,’ the king said with a slight laugh.
For the first time, Eperitus noticed that he looked thinner. On the subsistence rations they were eating – of which he gave half his own to Astynome – he imagined he must be looking gaunt himself. His stomach growled at the thought of food and he laid his hand flat over the hard muscles.
‘And Selagos?
‘Dead. I ran him off a cliff and he broke my fall on the rocks below. It took most of my strength to stop myself being dragged out to sea, and what was left I used clawing myself back up to safety.’
‘We have to find Eurylochus and put him in chains at once. His first move has failed, but –’
‘I’ve just finished speaking to Eurylochus. I wanted to know if Selagos had been stirring more trouble with the crew, but Eurylochus says he hasn’t.’
‘But Eurylochus is the ringleader,’ Eperitus protested. ‘He’s not going to admit his plans to you unless you force it out of him.’
‘Eurylochus didn’t put him up to this,’ Odysseus said. ‘It was Eupeithes, backed by a personal hatred for me. I killed his father, apparently.’
/> ‘Eupeithes!’ Eurybates asked. They had not told him the truth about Elpenor. ‘Then he’s back to his tricks again.’
‘Which is why we have to get off this island at the first sign of a break in the weather.’
‘You know that won’t happen,’ Eperitus said. ‘The gods are against us –’
Odysseus shook his head. There was a familiar light in his eyes, one Eperitus had not seen for many days.
‘Not any more. I heard her voice, Eperitus. Athena warned me just before Selagos attacked. She’s going to get us off this island, I know it. I just have to keep on praying. Now, take me to Astynome.’
Astynome gave birth the next day to a son. Eperitus built a pile of rocks over his tiny body on the highest point of the island, looking west towards Ithaca.
When he returned to the camp he found Astynome had been moved into Odysseus’s hut, while the king had ordered his things taken to the deck of the galley. Odysseus himself had gone to the other side of the island to pray. The interior of the hut was dimly lit by grey daylight, seeping in through the gaps in the wood, and the wavering glow of a single candle. The aroma of the beeswax was strong but could not hide the foul air of illness. The Trojan nurse knelt at Astynome’s bedside, wringing out a cloth over a bowl of water scented with a mix of herbs. She turned her gaze on him as he entered – the concern in her eyes clear – then dabbed the cloth across her patient’s forehead. Astynome’s face was paler than he had ever known it. She lay as still as a corpse, and the thought that she, too, might die struck him hard and sudden. Fear pierced his heart and left a bitter taste in the back of his throat. He wanted to fall to his knees and succumb again to the tears that had broken him once already that morning. He wanted to curse the gods and in the same breath plead with them for her life. But he did not. He would not give up on her. He would not so easily cast away what they had built together, and what they dreamed of building.
The nurse was watching him again, though this time her concern was for him rather than her charge. Standing, she laid her old but strong fingers on his arm in empathy and reassurance, then put the cloth in his hand and left. When he had buried their son, each stone he had placed over the linen-wrapped body had felt like a boulder. By the end he could barely see the cairn he had made for his tears. He had wept not just for the baby but for all the hardships he had known, so that he felt crushed of emotion. And yet as he sank to his knees beside her and laid his hand on her cold cheek, he felt the wounds open afresh and new tears force their way out.
When the weakness had passed he dried his eyes and looked down at Astynome.
‘I’ve buried him,’ he said. ‘On a hill beneath an oak. I’ll take you there in a day or two, when you’re better.’
He touched her hair, which was still damp with sweat from her exertions that morning. With what little Greek they knew, the Trojan women had insisted he leave Astynome in their care, and so he had endured the screams of her pain alone, sitting on the sand with his head in his hands and feeling his world begin to fracture. He had begged the gods not to take her life, weakened as she was from hunger and her fall on the rocks, and for a while it seemed they had answered him. But as he looked down at her closed eyes he wondered whether they had heard him at all, or whether, like Odysseus hearing Athena’s voice, it was all a cruel deception.
‘You will live, Astynome,’ he told her, wiping the fresh beads of sweat from her forehead. ‘Whatever it takes to save you, I’ll do it. The gods took Iphigenia and our son from me and I was powerless to stop them. But I won’t let them take you.’
She did not open her eyes or make any movement throughout his long vigil, though her chest rose and fell in slight, regular movements. After a while Eperitus lay on the furs beside her and stroked her hair, hoping she would sense his presence and take comfort from it. Slowly his exhaustion began to lull him, but as he was about to succumb to sleep he heard a voice call his name. At first he thought it was his subconscious, a voice from the dream he was already slipping into. Then he heard it again, spoken more firmly this time. He sat up.
‘Eperitus.’
He got up and pushed aside the flax curtain that acted as a door. By the quality of the thin daylight he reckoned it was still only mid-afternoon. The sight of Eurylochus standing a few paces from the hut irked him at once.
‘Why do you call me from my wife’s side? Don’t you understand how ill she is?’
‘Ill? She’s dying.’
Eperitus seized his neck and pushed him hard against the bole of a tree. His fingers dug into the soft flesh, making Eurylochus choke as he struggled to prise them away.
‘She is not going to die.’
‘She is,’ Eurylochus gasped, ‘unless you act to save her.’
‘I’m doing everything in my power.’
‘Not everything. Not yet.’
Eperitus released him and he crumpled to the floor, drawing air with strangulated breaths as he massaged his neck.
‘What do you mean?’ Eperitus insisted. ‘What does “not yet” mean?’
‘Astynome will die,’ Eurylochus croaked. ‘She’s weak, perilously weak, and you refuse to give her the strength she needs.’
Eperitus pulled him roughly to his feet and shook him by the shoulder.
‘Don’t you dare mock me. I’d give my own life to save her.’
‘Of course you would. I’ve seen you risk death on the battlefield to save men you barely know. But what about your honour? What about your beloved sense of loyalty? Now that would be a sacrifice, if you could bring yourself to make it.’
‘Honour and loyalty,’ Eperitus said derisively. ‘Cheap excuses for a man to turn his back on what really matters. If I could trade what little I have left of both for my wife’s sake I’d do it. But honour and loyalty won’t persuade the gods to lift this storm or give Astynome back her strength.’
‘Of course they will. This… ordeal she’s suffered might not kill her on its own, but she’s already dying of starvation. Damn it, we all are. What she needs is food. What she needs even more is the favour of the gods. I know a way to give her both.’
Eperitus released his grip on Eurylochus’s shoulder and stepped back.
‘For days we’ve tried trapping birds and catching fish, but with no success. The gods deny us even the most meagre game because they hate us –’
‘No, Eperitus, not us. Odysseus was the one who blinded the Cyclops and incurred Poseidon’s wrath, that and all his other offences against the gods. But if we were to offer them a sacrifice, a few of Hyperion’s cattle –’
‘Don’t be a fool!’
‘A few cattle to placate Poseidon and give us the meat we desperately need… that Astynome needs.’
‘No.’
‘Not even for her sake? You’ve seen those herds. The best animals any of us have ever set eyes on. What god would refuse to accept such a sacrifice? Especially if you were to offer one in exchange for Astynome’s life. They would listen to you, Eperitus, but your sense of honour and loyalty to Odysseus blinds you. Did you ever consider that the gods might want to break your pride and make you show some humility before them?’
‘Get out of my sight!’ Eperitus shouted, then turned on his heel and pushed through the curtain into the hut.
Astynome was looking at him as he entered.
‘I didn’t mean to wake you –’
‘Don’t do it, Eperitus,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t do what he asks. Eurylochus is a liar.’
He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. The flesh was deathly cold. He smiled at her and looked into her eyes, then bent down to kiss her forehead.
‘But he’s right. You need food, and more than anything else you need the blessing of the gods. What choice do I have?’
She shook her head but had no more strength for words. He kissed her on the lips and then stood and left the hut. Eurylochus was waiting for him.
Chapter Forty-One
THE CATTLE OF THE SUN GOD
Odysseus wo
ke with a start. He had been dreaming of Ithaca and for a moment believed he was there, waking on the shore where he had been left by the crew of an unknown galley. Then he recognised the stone altar he had rebuilt after the fight with Selagos and knew he was back on Thrinacie. He looked round, sensing something was wrong but seeing nothing other than the raging seas and the darkening skies of late evening.
When he was sure he was alone, he stood and began the walk back to camp. Every step of the way he felt on edge, sensing that something had happened at the camp while he had been away. He cursed himself for falling asleep, though he was not to blame. The gods themselves had put him into a deep slumber and he soon knew why. He saw the column of black smoke long before he smelled it, the sort of trail only a large fire could make. Then when the wind brought the aroma to his nostrils and it was mixed with the smell of roast flesh, his heart sank.
Topping the last ridge, he looked down at the beach and saw groups of Ithacans moving about, each man busy with his individual chores. For a moment he was relieved there were no cattle in sight. Then he saw men with their limbs covered in blood as they chopped and sawed at the carcasses of several animals. Others were skewering the meat and roasting it over small fires, while their comrades sat around eating and crying out for more. At the top of the beach were the flayed hides of six cows, stretched out over an old sail while several men scraped away the layers of flesh and fat. A seventh animal lay dead before a large, flat boulder. A man stood over it with a long dagger in his hand. Odysseus felt the fury rising within him as he recognised his cousin through the gore. Then he saw another figure, cloaked and hooded, standing before the fire with his back turned. In his hands was a parcel of meat wrapped in fat and topped with raw flesh. He threw the gods’ portion into the flames, held his hands up in prayer and then bent to pick up a bowl of water by his feet. This he slopped onto the flames, using it as a libation in place of wine. Again he raised up his hands in a plea to the gods.
‘You fools!’ Odysseus shouted. ‘You damned fools. You’ve brought doom on all of us.’