The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

by Iliffe, Glyn

  Priam’s vanity and arrogance had all but gone since the deaths of Hector and Paris, and as he faced Aeneas he looked the ghost of his former self. His hair was grey and lank now, and his skin pale and lined; his once tall figure had become sloped and bent, while his eyes were dull and stricken with the pain of his loss. But Aeneas could still see the old disdain in them that Priam had never been able to hide, a contempt that was born out of rivalry with his cousin Anchises, Aeneas’s father. The king of Dardanus had once slept with the incomparable Aphrodite, whereas Priam, who had numerous wives and had always slept with whomever he pleased, had not. But instead of taking his jealousy out on Anchises – whom Zeus had already crippled for boasting about sleeping with Aphrodite – he directed his resentment instead towards Aeneas, the result of Anchises’s union with the goddess. And even though Aeneas was married to one of Priam’s many daughters, as a mere prince he was forced to bear it in silence.

  ‘I refer to the prophecy that Helenus said would ensure the safety of Troy,’ Aeneas replied. ‘He was furious about losing Helen to Deiphobus, and one of our spies saw him enter the Greek camp under escort three nights ago. If he’s revealed the oracle to them out of spite, then they may know a way to undermine our defences.’

  ‘You’re speculating,’ said Deiphobus, who was standing next to Aeneas with a silver goblet of wine in his hand. ‘We don’t even know what this prophecy was.’

  ‘I do,’ Priam said.

  He looked at Deiphobus and Aeneas before passing his watery gaze over the others around the table: Apheidas, Antenor and Idaeus, his herald.

  ‘How do you know?’ Apheidas asked, only belatedly adding, ‘my lord.’

  ‘One of my daughters, Cassandra, came to me this evening. It was she who had given Helenus these oracles – there were three of them – which he was intending to pass off as his own. And if the Greeks want to believe them, then that’s their foolishness, not ours.’

  ‘Nevertheless, shouldn’t we take some precautions?’ Deiphobus asked. ‘Just in case there’s a weakness we’ve overlooked.’

  ‘Cassandra is deluded – half-mad, even,’ Priam answered. ‘Her tortured mind imagines the most fantastic things that she believes are visions from the gods. They aren’t. And perhaps you’re forgetting something, Son.’

  He looked over at the wall to his left. The daylight that was normally channelled into the great hall through conduits from the high ceiling had long since disappeared, but the flames that flickered in the oblong hearth and the torches that hung about the walls spread an orange glow throughout the vast chamber. It pushed back the shadows to reveal the murals that decorated the smoke-stained plaster, though they had been drained of the colour and energy that inhabited them during the day. Sweeping his long purple cloak behind him, Priam walked up to one of the larger-than-life depictions and reached up to touch it with the palm of his hand. It showed two golden-skinned men: one dressed in a shepherd’s fleece and playing a lyre as he sat on a hillside; the other stripped to the waist as he fitted enormous blocks of stone together to make a strong wall.

  ‘You forget, Deiphobus, that our city has no weakness,’ the king said. ‘Its walls were made by the gods themselves, by Poseidon and Apollo. They cannot be broken down and they cannot be scaled. Let Cassandra try to draw attention to herself, and let the Greeks chase after her fantasies. We are safe.’

  ‘Then why have you called us here, my lord, if not to discuss Helenus’s treachery?’ Antenor asked.

  Priam left the mural and moved slowly back across the hall, the flames of the hearth casting a tall shadow over the wall behind him. As he rejoined the others, he laid his hands palm-down on the table and leaned his weight upon them. He let out a long breath and his whole body seemed to deflate with it, leaving him a thin, elderly man heavily burdened by the responsibilities of his rank. Deiphobus and Antenor, standing on either side of him, instinctively moved closer, fearing the king might suddenly collapse. Then he drew himself up again and nodded towards a large shape in the middle of the table, draped in purple cloth. It had sat there all through the meal they had shared, arousing the curiosity of the others but so pointedly ignored by Priam that they dared not mention it themselves. Now, at last, it seemed the mystery would be revealed.

  ‘That is the reason I’ve asked you here. Deiphobus?’

  The king looked at his son, who after a moment’s hesitation reached across and slowly pulled away the purple cloth. Aeneas and Idaeus gasped, while Apheidas called on the gods in an awed whisper. With the sole exception of Priam the men around the table leaned closer, their eyes wide with wonder and their faces shining with the glittering light reflected from the object before them.

  ‘The Golden Vine,’ Priam declared. ‘Zeus gave it to Tros, my great-grandfather, as compensation for abducting Ganymede, his son, and making him his cupbearer on Olympus. It was on the promise of this Vine that Poseidon and Apollo built the walls of Troy for my grandfather, Ilus, who then cheated them of their payment.’

  ‘But I thought this was just a legend,’ Deiphobus said without taking his eyes from the Vine.

  ‘All legends are based in truth of one kind or another, Son.’

  Priam reached across and gently scooped up the Vine in the palms of his hands, lifting the cluster of golden spheres before the faces of the others. As they looked at it they were able to see that each grape had been individually crafted and was linked to a stem of gold that was supple and moved with the weight of the fruit. Three golden leaves were attached to the Vine and as Priam’s fingers closed lightly about them they bent to his touch as if they were real.

  ‘The Vine has lain hidden in the deepest vault of the palace since I was a boy, jealously guarded by each of my forefathers and never brought out into the light of day. It is the last great treasure of Troy. And now it must be given up.’

  There were exclamations of disbelief and denial at the announcement, but Priam shook his head.

  ‘Hector and Paris are dead, and the faith I placed in the Amazons and Aethiopes proved unfounded. Our armies have been decimated time and again, until the rump that remains is barely capable of manning the city walls, let alone driving the Greeks from our shores. And yet there is one final hope, a last resort that my pride has always refused to acknowledge. Until now.’

  Apheidas’s brow furrowed.

  ‘What is this hope, my lord?’

  ‘Not what, but who,’ Priam replied. He lay the Vine carefully back down on the purple cloth and looked about at the others. ‘I mean King Eurypylus of Mysia.’

  ‘Your grandson?’ Antenor queried. ‘He’ll never go against his mother’s wishes, and Astyoche refuses to even recognise you as her father.’

  ‘Our parting was bitter,’ Priam agreed, nodding. ‘Astyoche was a female Hector – headstrong and resolute. When I forbade her to marry Telephus, Heracles’s son, she slipped away at night and rode to his palace, where she married him. We haven’t spoken since. And yet there was one thing she coveted above all else, but was never able to make her own. The Golden Vine.’

  Apheidas snorted his disgust.

  ‘Do you mean you’re going to exchange the Vine for the help of a king who can’t do anything without his mother’s permission? What possible use could a man like that be on a battlefield?’

  Priam stared at him, piqued that a mere captain should dare to question the judgement of a king.

  ‘Only a fool would dismiss Eurypylus,’ he said. ‘His grandfather is Heracles, from whom he has inherited terrifying strength, or so it’s said. What’s more, he leads an army many thousands strong, all of whom would be fresh to the fight – not tired of war like we who’ve been battling for the past ten years. If the Mysians can be persuaded to help us while the Greeks are still recovering from their recent losses, we might be able to throw them back into the sea once and for all.’

  ‘But would Eurypylus come to our aid, just because you placate Astyoche with the last great treasure of our city?’ Deiphobus asked. ‘Woul
dn’t he want something for himself? He’s a king, after all.’

  ‘Rumour has it Astyoche is her son’s lover,’ Priam said, ‘and knowing how manipulative she used to be, I can fully believe it. If I offer her the Vine, she will make sure he comes. Though you’re right, Eurypylus should have something too. I will offer him Cassandra in marriage.’

  Priam called for wine, while the others exchanged questioning looks. As servants appeared and refilled their cups, the king leaned across the table and replaced the cloth over the Golden Vine. At his signal, four guards moved out from the shadows and placed the priceless treasure into a wooden casket, before turning and carrying it from the great hall.

  ‘It’s late,’ Priam said, draining the last of his cup. He turned to his herald.

  ‘Idaeus, tomorrow you will begin preparations to go to Mysia. Antenor will go with you. Deiphobus, tell your sister she’s going to be married. That’s if she doesn’t already know,’ he added with a small laugh. ‘And as for the king, I need my bed. Good night.’

  Eperitus sat on one of the benches, wet, windswept and dejected as he huddled between Eurybates on his right and the bulk of Polites on his left. Polites acted like a wall that protected him from the worst of the storm, but the rain and the waves that broke over the low sides of the ship had already soaked him to the skin, while the howling wind that burrowed through the gaps in his clothing ensured his discomfort was complete. And, unlike the Argive sailors who were busy battling the squall under the shouted directions of Sthenelaus and Diomedes, Eperitus had nothing to take his mind off the misery of his situation. All he could do was stare at Zacynthos to the north-west, a dark lump that was almost lost between the jagged seas below, the grey, oppressive clouds above and the thick veil of rain in-between. As he stared at the sparsely populated, southernmost extremity of Odysseus’s kingdom, he thought back longingly to the days they had spent on the voyage from Troy, sailing on sun-blessed oceans from one headland to the next as they tracked the Asian seaboard south to Icaria, and then hopping from island to island across the Cyclades. The weather had been kind to them, too, as they crossed the Cretan Sea from Melos to Malia – the south-eastern corner of the Peloponnese – and followed the coast round, past the mouth of the River Eurotas to the tip of the Taygetus Mountains at the cape of Taenarus. By then his legs had gotten quite used to the pleasant movements of the waves beneath the hull of the galley, and the only thing that had unsettled him as they made their way up the south-west coast of the Peloponnese – a route he vaguely remembered from ten years earlier when the Ithacan fleet had sailed to war, and from ten years before that when he and Odysseus had journeyed back from Sparta after the marriage of Helen and Menelaus – had been the ramshackle and almost deserted appearance of the harbours and fishing villages they had passed. There had been no women or children to wave at them as they went by, or groups of old sailors discussing the trim of the galley or the way she was handled. Only the cluster of small fishing boats in each harbour, and the sense they were being watched by unseen eyes, suggested the villages were inhabited at all.

  Then, as they pulled up the stone anchors that morning, the weather had changed. With a speed that surprised Eperitus, the wind picked up and the skies grew dark with clouds that rolled down from the heavens to press upon the rising turmoil of the sea. The easy motion of the waves that Eperitus’s legs had learned to accommodate in the earlier part of the voyage now turned violent, pitching him about the deck and turning his stomach so that he was sick over Omeros’s sandals. Omeros, green-faced and almost too ill to notice, returned the compliment. Sthenelaus’s voice fought against the wind, ordering the crew to angle the sail so that the ship was driven diagonally across the waves. A moment later the spar was lowered halfway down the mast to reduce the pressure and steady the roll of the galley. That was as much as they could do in the face of the gale, but as the ship drifted in relative safety a new cry went up. Land had been spotted to the north.

  Eperitus, who had remained astern with Omeros, was now joined by Polites and Eurybates.

  ‘It’s Zacynthos,’ Polites announced, a hint of excitement in his normally deep, slow voice. ‘Come on.’

  He hoisted Eperitus up by his arm and dragged him to the prow, followed by Eurybates and Omeros. Odysseus was already there, not even noticing his countrymen as he grasped the bow rail and squinted hard against the squall. They joined him in silence, staring through the sheet-rain at the almost imperceptible horizon rolling from left to right before them. Eperitus saw the line of the Peloponnesian coast on the starboard side of the galley, which Sthenelaus kept them in sight of at all times, but despite his sharp vision he was unable to see the new land that had been spotted. Eventually he caught a brief glimpse of something black and indistinct, but the act of focussing on a static point in a world of constant motion forced his stomach to contract in protest. He vomited again, this time managing to reach the side of the ship before the liquid spilled from his lips, then staggered back to suffer in solitude on the benches. One by one the others sat down until only Odysseus remained, lost in his own thoughts and memories as he stared at the southernmost point of the kingdom he had not seen for ten years.

  Slowly, Zacynthos grew from a small blot to something that was visibly a large, if still distant, island. The gale was already dying away and the galley would soon head towards the mainland, to seek the mouth of the River Alpheius. There they would make their final landfall of the voyage and head inland to find Pisa, and hopefully the tomb of Pelops. Knowing this, Eperitus reluctantly extracted himself from the shelter afforded by Polites and Eurybates, and staggered up the middle of the ship to join the lone figure of Odysseus at the prow. Despite his nausea, which was exaggerated by his supernaturally enhanced senses, Eperitus fought down the desire to vomit again.

  ‘Thinking of home?’ he asked, raising his voice over the roaring wind.

  Odysseus nodded.

  ‘They’re so close,’ he said, just loud enough for Eperitus to hear. ‘It’s strange, but the nearer I am to Penelope, the clearer I can recall her face. Back in Ilium I could barely picture her, but here –’ He reached out with his fingertips. ‘Here it’s as if I can see her before me in the rain. But it’s only a memory, an image of how she used to be, and what makes it worse is the real Penelope is just over there, beyond the storm. If only I could see her as she is now.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s as beautiful as the day you left her.’

  ‘Yes,’ Odysseus said. ‘Ten years would barely have added a line to her face. Unlike me. I feel like the past decade has been spent in Hades, surrounded by horrors and forgetful of the beauty of the real world. It’s as if the Odysseus who sailed away from Ithaca has died a thousand times since then, and all that’s left is this.’ He plucked dismissively at his tunic. ‘I doubt she would even recognise me any more. And what would Telemachus make of me? Could he ever come to love a father he’s never known? Why, Mentor and Halitherses will be more like fathers to him than I can ever be.’

  ‘Uncles, maybe, but you’re his real father, Odysseus. Nothing can replace that. And the sooner we find this bone – ’

  ‘Agamemnon and Nestor were right, you know. If this had been my own ship I’d be on my way to Ithaca now. Oh, I’d probably tell myself it was just a short visit, a day or two to see my family. But days would become weeks and weeks months, until I’d no longer care about Agamemnon’s war or my oath to Menelaus. The fact Diomedes is in command prevents that, but it hasn’t stopped me thinking the strangest, most desperate things, Eperitus. Before you joined me, I was even considering whether I could leap overboard and swim to Zacynthos –’

  ‘That’d be madness,’ Eperitus exclaimed.

  ‘Madness indeed,’ said another voice.

  The two men turned to see an Argive sailor standing beside them. He was tall and pale, with large grey eyes and a straight nose that did not dip at the bridge. His chin was clean-shaven, unlike the rest of the crew, and he had long, fair hair that was tied
back behind his neck. Even more notable than this rare feature was the fact that his stone-coloured cloak and tunic were dry, as if impervious to the lashing rain.

  Eperitus frowned in confusion, sensing something was wrong. Surely he would have remembered such a man on the long voyage from Troy? Moreover, why weren’t any of the other crew members looking at the striking figure standing in the prow? It was then he saw that many were leaning against each other, their heads lolling on their chests. Others had slumped forward over their knees with their arms hanging limply at their sides. Diomedes and Sthenelaus at the helm were both reclining against the bow rail, propped up by their armpits as their heads rolled back to stare with unseeing eyes at the stormy skies above. Even more strangely, the twin rudders were not swinging freely now that the unconscious Sthenelaus had released them, but were held fast by an unseen force that kept the galley on a straight course. As his mind struggled to comprehend what his eyes were telling him, his other senses were registering that the rain was no longer driving against his skin and the sickness in his stomach had gone entirely.

  As ever, Odysseus was the first to recognise her. With one hand still gripping the bow rail, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head. Eperitus followed his example, finally realising the man before them was no sailor, but the goddess Athena, Odysseus’s immortal patron who had appeared to them several times during their many adventures together.

  Athena leaned down and took both men by the hand, sending a wave of warmth through their chilled bodies as she pulled them to their feet.

  ‘Even a swimmer of your skill and stamina would not reach Zacynthos through these seas, Odysseus,’ she said. ‘You would have thrown your life away for nothing and never seen your family again.’

  ‘If my mortal body is frail, Mistress,’ he replied, ‘then my mortal heart is even weaker. Why shouldn’t I risk the one when the other is already dying without Penelope and Telemachus?’

  Athena looked at him and there was pity in her eyes, softening the cold, hard beauty of her ageless face. There was something else, too, Eperitus thought: a sadness beneath the compassion, as if she knew of an even more terrible fate in Odysseus’s future.