by Iliffe, Glyn
As he spoke Eperitus sensed a change and realised the groaning had stopped. He raised a finger to his lips, gesturing the others to silence. A number of large boulders had rolled down from the cliff countless years before, forming a clumsy ramp that led up the sheer rock face. Eperitus’s gaze followed the boulders up the side of the cliff, noticing signs of smoothing here and there, as well as smaller stones that seemed to have been put in place to act as steps where the rocks were steepest. And then, as he looked higher up the fog-shrouded precipice, he saw the triangular mouth of a cave.
‘He’s in there,’ he whispered, pointing.
The five men moved forward together, craning their heads back to stare up at the opening above them. Odysseus laid a hand on Diomedes’s shoulder.
‘Be careful of everything you say. He’s had ten years to dwell on his hatred of the Greeks, so don’t provoke him or threaten him in any way. Remember his bow and arrows.’
He covered his face again and drew back to stand behind the others. Diomedes looked up at the cave and cupped a hand to his mouth.
‘Philoctetes,’ he called. ‘Philoctetes, son of Poeas, if you’re up there then show yourself. We wish to speak with you.’
There was no reply. After a few more moments, Diomedes turned to Eperitus with a frown.
‘Are you certain he’s up there? I know your senses are keener than ours, but –’
‘Look again,’ Eperitus said, nodding at the mouth of the cave and pinching his nose against the fresh stench polluting the already bad air.
The others peered up through the mist and saw that a figure had appeared. A tall bow was clutched in its left hand and an arrow had been fitted, drawn in readiness to fire at the hooded figures below. The weapon was undoubtedly the one Heracles had given to Philoctetes, but whether the creature that held it was the Malian archer – or even a human being at all – could barely be discerned. Its skin was pale and ingrained with years of dirt; its bare limbs were so thin and wasted that they were no thicker than a small child’s; the rags that covered its torso seemed to hang like the tattered remnants of a sail over a mast; and the creature’s long beard and hair made its head seem much too large for its emaciated body. But Eperitus’s sharp eyes were able to see the face clearly. It was a face that was as twisted and misshapen as the trees that grew on the windswept plains of Ilium, a face that had been distorted irrevocably by years of excruciating pain and cancerous hatred, but a face that had undeniably once belonged to Philoctetes.
Diomedes stepped back, groping for Eperitus’s wrist and seizing it.
‘Is that … is that him?’ he hissed, unable to tear his eyes away from the savage figure aiming its bow at them from the boulders above.
‘Yes, it’s Philoctetes,’ Eperitus replied, freeing his wrist and placing his hand on Diomedes’s shoulder, urging him forward once more.
The archer lowered his weapon a fraction, revealing dark eyes as he stared down at the newcomers to his island.
‘Who are you?’ he croaked, the very act of speaking causing him to break out in a fit of dry coughing that took a few moments to recover from. ‘Who are you and what do you want on my island?’
‘Are you Philoctetes, son of Poeas?’ Diomedes repeated.
‘This is the body that once bore that name, though both the man and his fame have been forgotten by this world. But this is the bow of Heracles, whom the gods raised up to live with them on Mount Olympus, having made him immortal like themselves. Its arrows never miss and their tips are poisonous, so if you’ve come to mock the ghost of Philoctetes or steal the rocks and stones that are his possessions, then beware.’
‘It’s true you’ve become a pitiful figure, Philoctetes,’ Diomedes replied. ‘Yet you were once a prince of Malia, and custom dictates a prince should treat his visitors with decorum, even if his home is a cold and lonely rock like this. You speak of the gods with respect in your voice, so if you honour them then honour us.’
Philoctetes frowned angrily, then shifted his position with surprising speed, using the rocks for support. Diomedes and the others flinched instinctively as he raised his bow and fired into the air. A moment later there was a squawk, followed by a loud thump as a gull crashed onto the rocks before them.
‘You see?’ he crowed, his eyes wide as he stared at them along the shaft of a new arrow. ‘Philoctetes has provided a feast to celebrate your arrival on Lemnos! But first – just to show he hasn’t forgotten how to observe the rules of xenia – he must know your identities and what it is you want of him? Are you merchants, seeking the way to Ilium or Greece? He’d lead you there himself, though you aren’t the first visitors to this rock and none of your predecessors ever offered Philoctetes passage on their ships. Not as soon as they caught wind of this!’
He raised his leg to show a foot bandaged in cloth that was black with filth. As he did so he gave out a cry of anguished despair and fell back against a boulder, beating the stone with the flat of his free hand and raising a scream to the invisible skies above, where he knew the gods remained indifferent to his pain. Eperitus caught a movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see that Eurylochus had taken a step forward. His hand was cupped over his mouth and nose to filter out some of the reek of Philoctetes’s wound, and in his eyes Eperitus could see he was debating whether to leap up the rocks and take the bow and arrows by force while their owner was paralysed with agony. Then, before Eurylochus could make his decision, the screaming ended in another fit of coughing and Philoctetes slid himself back up against the boulder. He raised his bow and drew back the arrow once more, though weakly, and aimed it at the men below.
‘So who are you?’ he called in a tired voice. ‘Do you have any lineage to speak of? And what in the name of Heracles brings you to this forsaken place?’
‘As for whom I am, you know me already,’ Diomedes answered, tipping back his hood. ‘I am Diomedes, son of Tydeus. I have come to ask if you will rejoin the army and fight with us against Troy.’
Philoctetes did not move. His eyes narrowed slightly as they stared down the shaft of the arrow at the king of Argos, but he said nothing. Then a flicker of anger touched his twisted features. He gripped the bow tightly and drew the string back to his sneering lip.
‘He prayed you would come one day,’ he said, heavy tears swelling up in the corners of his eyes before rolling down his filthy cheeks and into his beard. ‘Philoctetes prayed you would come back for him, snivelling like curs, pleading for him and his arrows to save your worthless skins. He prayed for this day so hard and so long, to Heracles and any god who would listen, offering the only sacrifices his kingdom of rocks could provide – birds, fish and crabs! Have you ever tried to sacrifice a crab, Diomedes? Do the gods even accept such meagre sacrifices? But of course they do, or why else have you come?’
‘Indeed, why else have we come, Philoctetes, unless it was the gods who sent us? The Greeks have need of your bow and arrows and Agamemnon himself requests that you return to the army and help us secure the final victory over Priam.’
‘Agamemnon!’ Philoctetes spat. ‘What does Philoctetes care for that man and his requests? What service does Philoctetes owe to him, or to any of you for that matter? How long has it been since you abandoned him here? It must be at least five years by now.’
‘It’s ten.’
‘Ten!’ Philoctetes reeled back, bearing his blackened teeth in a snarl and slapping repeatedly at the boulder with the flat of his hand. ‘Ten years alone, with nothing but seagulls and his hatred of the Greeks to keep him company! In the name of Heracles, can it have been so long?’
‘Be glad it doesn’t have to be any longer,’ Diomedes said, a little impatiently. ‘What’s more, Agamemnon realises you were wronged when we left you here and doesn’t expect you to return to the army without compensation. He offers seven copper tripods and cauldrons to go with them, never touched by fire, along with ten ingots of gold and three slave women trained in all the household arts. These are fine gifts, Philoctet
es, and you will bring yourself great honour by accepting them.’
Philoctetes was half lost in a sheet of fog that had rolled down from the cliff tops above, but his husky voice was clearly audible in the damp air.
‘Philoctetes always liked you, Diomedes. You were one of the few kings who had a shred of decency in them. Yet you don’t have Odysseus’s powers of persuasion, or that honeyed voice of his; indeed, you make Agamemnon’s gifts sound as exciting as roast seagull. The King of Men should have sent Odysseus instead; Philoctetes could have enjoyed the skill of his arguments, and then had the satisfaction of shooting him dead in payment for marooning him here! Now go back in your ship and tell Agamemnon to keep his offer. Philoctetes doesn’t need cauldrons or gold – not here – and any “honour” attached to them would be more than compensated for by the shame of serving an army that betrayed him!’
‘Then forget the gifts,’ Diomedes snapped, jabbing his finger at the mist-shrouded figure above. ‘Forget Agamemnon, forget the army, forget the oath we took to protect Helen. If you’re so twisted with hatred of your own countrymen –’
‘Curse all Greeks!’
‘Then if you hate us so much, do it for the love of the gods – or fear of them, if that’s easier. Do you think Agamemnon or any of us’d give a damn about your bow and arrows, whatever their powers are claimed to be? If the spears of Achilles, Ajax and a host of others haven’t defeated Troy in ten years, what difference will your weapons make? None that I can see! The only reason we came here was because Calchas, priest of Apollo, had a vision that Troy will not fall without you. Until the bow and arrows of Heracles are brought to Ilium, every drop of Greek blood will have been spilled in vain. So if you won’t return for our sakes, then do it out of respect for the gods. Or do it for yourself. Isn’t it payment enough that men will say the walls of Troy only succumbed to the arrows of Philoctetes? That’s more than thousands of those who have already died can claim, and many of them were greater men than you are.’
There was a long silence, during which Philoctetes was lost to sight behind the drifting mist. When it cleared they saw he had descended a little and was sitting on a smooth rock with his bow and arrows at his side. A thick, twisted branch that he used as a crutch was leaning against his inner thigh.
‘Perhaps you’re not as clumsy with words as Philoctetes thought, Diomedes,’ he said. ‘At least, not when you‘re touched with a little passion. And the will of the gods – and the promise of everlasting glory – are not easy things to deny, especially when the alternative is to remain here, forgotten by the civilised world and left to feast on stringy gull’s meat and seaweed. What Philoctetes wouldn’t do for a taste of wine, or even the feel of bread in his mouth again! Not to mention a little conversation and the company of his fellow men.’
He paused and Eperitus sensed the hesitation in Philoctetes’s tone.
‘Go on,’ Diomedes said, cautiously.
‘And yet you ask too much. Can you even begin to understand what it’s like to spend – what did you say it was – to spend ten years alone? To be cursed by the gods and abandoned by your comrades, nursing a desire for vengeance and longing for human companionship, only to be offered salvation by the very men whose downfall you’ve been praying for all that time. Yes, he wanted you to return and plead for his help, but only so he could have the satisfaction of telling you to go to the halls of Hades. But now you’ve come, it’s not how he’d imagined it. He’s not even sure whether this isn’t some sort of trick, the kind of thing Odysseus would dream up; or whether, if he went with you to Ilium, Philoctetes would spend his arrows on the Trojans or turn them on the Greeks. He needs time, Diomedes.’
‘Zeus’s beard, haven’t you had enough time?’ demanded a new voice.
Eurylochus pulled back his hood and turned to Diomedes.
‘He’s never going to come with us, Diomedes. He’s as stubborn as a mule and twice as stupid, not to mention driven out of his senses. If you’d let Odysseus do the talking we’d have been back at the galley by now, sailing for Ilium with this twisted maggot of a man hankering to get into battle and end the war.’
‘Odysseus? Odysseus is here?’ Philoctetes said, leaning down over the boulder and staring at the piglike features of Eurylochus. Eurylochus looked down at his feet, realising his slip, and Philoctetes turned his fierce eyes on the hooded figures behind him. ‘Which one of you is Odysseus? Declare yourself or Philoctetes’ll shoot all three of you where you stand!’
‘You’re a damned fool, Eurylochus,’ Odysseus snarled, removing his hood and walking out in front of the others. ‘Get from my sight before I cut out your tongue and feed it to the seagulls!’
Eurylochus could not meet Odysseus’s angry gaze and retreated into the mist. As he slipped away, a gurgle of cold laughter spilled down from the rocks above them.
‘He should have known you’d be here,’ Philoctetes crowed, smiling with triumphant hatred. ‘He should have guessed Agamemnon wouldn’t send Diomedes for a task like this. Only the great deceiver – Odysseus himself – would do. Ha, ha! Philoctetes has prayed for this chance for so long. And now, Odysseus, your treacherous ways have finally caught up with you!’
He drew back his bow and took aim.
Chapter Three
HERACLES
Eperitus felt his heart race. If he had been allowed to bring his spear he could have launched it at the skeletal, wild-haired wretch perched among the boulders above them, but as Philoctetes drew back the feathered arrow so that its poisonous head rested against the top of his left fist there was not even enough time to throw himself in front of his king. Then, in the split moment before Philoctetes released the bowstring, Odysseus raised his hand.
‘Stop!’ he commanded.
His voice had such power and authority that Philoctetes was compelled to retain his pinch-hold on the arrow and lower his bow a little. He looked down the shaft at the man he had spent ten years hating – hating him still, but powerless for an instant to bring about his destruction.
‘Philoctetes, I do not deny your right to kill me,’ Odysseus began. ‘Indeed, what man who had suffered as you have suffered would not want to kill the one he blamed for his misfortunes. If you send my spirit down to Hades then I would not begrudge you your vengeance, even though your haste will have deprived Penelope of a husband and Telemachus a father. You, after all, are the victim, the man who through no fault of his own was betrayed and abandoned to die on this forbidding rock.’
He swept his hand in a half-circle, looking up at the churning walls of mist and the dark mass of the cliff faces beyond them.
‘In truth, I’m amazed you were able to survive this long in such a place. There are few, even among the greatest warriors of Greece, who could have kept themselves alive amid this desolation.’
‘Philoctetes had the bow Heracles left him,’ Philoctetes said. ‘And his hatred of you, of course.’
Odysseus nodded as if in sympathy, though his eyes did not leave Philoctetes for one moment.
‘Of course. Hatred is a powerful force among mortals. It gives a man endurance in adversity, a purpose to go on living when there is nothing else to live for. In battle it focusses his strength and gives him an urgency that is difficult for his enemies to overcome. But hate does not nourish a man, Philoctetes, nor is it something he can master. I know a warrior who, for twenty years, has been crippled by his loathing of his own father. If he could leave his hatred behind there would be few men to match him in this age of the world, but it distracts him and holds him back, preventing him from becoming what the gods meant him to be.’
Eperitus felt a flush of anger that Odysseus should dare draw parallels between himself and the wretched figure standing among the rocks above them. His father was a black-hearted murderer who had killed a king and taken his throne for himself, and when Eperitus had refused to support his vile crime or acknowledge his rule he had exiled him from the kingdom for life. Shortly afterwards he had fallen in with Odysseus and f
ollowed the new path the gods had laid before him; but he had never forgiven his father’s sin or forgotten his desire to kill him and wash clean the stain from his family’s name. Indeed, a man of honour could do no less, and Odysseus’s comments were a stinging betrayal. Eperitus stared at the back of his head, willing him to turn so he could challenge his accusation, but the king kept his gaze stubbornly fixed on the Malian archer whose arrow was still pointed at his heart.
‘No doubt the man you speak of had his choice,’ Philoctetes said. ‘And yet what choice did Philoctetes have? His hatred of you was the only difference between life and death. He chose life.’
‘Wrong, Philoctetes. You chose death. The Philoctetes who led his fleet out from the Euboean Straits and beat Achilles in the race to Tenedos is dead. His hatred murdered him and left you, a living wraith, a mere husk of humanity!’
‘No!’ Philoctetes shouted, raising his bow and drawing the string taut. ‘No! Philoctetes is alive, and when you’re dead he’ll be free again.’
‘Kill me and any vestige of Philoctetes that remains in you will die with me,’ Odysseus retorted. ‘Just listen to your babbling speech. Ever since you emerged from that cave you’ve referred to yourself as he and him, never I or me. Whatever you are, you aren’t Philoctetes. But perhaps you’re right that he isn’t completely dead yet. Perhaps something of the old Philoctetes, the true Philoctetes, is left inside you. And to him I’m as vital as that crutch you lean on. The thought of me has kept him alive all these years, and though you hate me, without me he would disappear forever. Kill me and Philoctetes will truly die. Only you will be left!’
As Philoctetes stared back down at Odysseus, it was clear the king’s words had provoked a shift deep within his consciousness; a realisation that without the object of his hatred he would succumb fully to the wild, insane creature that lurked among the rocks of Lemnos, reeling between pain and hunger while it eked out an existence on the flesh of seagulls. If he killed Odysseus, the precious Philoctetes – the proud, handsome archer whose memory he guarded like cherished treasure – would be lost forever. While Eperitus watched, a sharp jolt of pain brought Philoctetes crashing down onto the rocks with a cry. His thin voice, stripped bare of any humanity, rose up into the fog-filled air and screamed to the gods for mercy. His screams broke the trance Odysseus’s voice had thrown over the others and both Diomedes and Antiphus raced towards the foot of the cascade of boulders to help him. Odysseus called them back.