The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

by Iliffe, Glyn

  ‘You are stronger than you think,’ she said. ‘How else have you managed to stay true to Penelope through all these years, when every other man has taken Trojan concubines or satisfied himself with whores? No, Odysseus, you are unique among the kings of Greece and only you can deliver Troy into their hands.

  ‘As for you,’ she added, turning to Eperitus, ‘I’m pleased, if surprised, that your brain has finally managed to emerge from its long slumber.’

  ‘Mistress?’

  ‘I mean your suggestion of making the voyage in an Argive ship, of course. Agamemnon was right not to have allowed Odysseus to sail in one of his own galleys – the temptation of returning to Ithaca would have been too great. But without Odysseus the mission was doomed to failure and the will of the gods would never have been fulfilled. We are grateful to you, Eperitus.’

  Eperitus nodded uncertainly. ‘Thank you, Mistress.’

  ‘And what is the will of the gods?’ Odysseus asked.

  ‘To see Troy defeated. The war has almost fulfilled its purpose; Zeus does not want to see it prolonged unnecessarily.’

  Eperitus could see Odysseus biting back whatever words had sprung to his quick mind. Instead, the king looked questioningly into the goddess’s clear eyes.

  ‘And how will an ivory shoulder blade help us defeat Priam and conquer his city, Mistress?’

  ‘Think of what your qualities are, Odysseus. Ask yourself why this mission will fail without you.’

  Odysseus frowned and looked away into the storm. Eperitus followed his gaze and saw for the first time how the raindrops seemed to hit an invisible shield around the ship and disappear in small puffs of steam, leaving the vessel surrounded by a thin layer of fog.

  ‘It’s a riddle!’ Odysseus answered, turning sharply back to the goddess. ‘There’s something about the shoulder bone, or maybe the tomb itself, that will tell us how to defeat Troy. And you think I’m the one who will decipher it.’

  Athena answered with a smile. ‘Whatever the reason for sending you, Odysseus, don’t think the tomb will give up its secrets freely. You already know about the maze.’

  ‘To keep out the ghost of Myrtilus,’ Eperitus said.

  ‘Or so Agamemnon believes,’ Athena replied, enigmatically. ‘And maybe that was the story its builders put about. Yet the truth is the maze was not built to keep something out, but to keep something in.’

  ‘Agamemnon said the tomb was cursed –’ Odysseus began.

  ‘In that he was not wrong,’ Athena said, ‘as some have found out for themselves – robbers, mostly: desperate men who were either ignorant of the curse or too greedy to care. Their bones now litter the dark corridors of the maze. But though you are neither ignorant nor greedy, your need is more desperate than theirs and by the will of the gods you must enter the tomb and face the curse that haunts it. For that reason I am permitted to help you, if only with advice. In a moment I will be gone and the crew will awaken, each of them thinking they were alone in a moment’s lapse of consciousness. The storm will abate and you will be able to anchor your ship by the mouth of the Alpheius. Make camp tonight and in the morning take a small force of warriors with you, while leaving enough men behind to protect the galley in your absence. Follow the banks of the river until you reach a temple of Artemis, within sight of the walls of Pisa. On the opposite side of the water is a low hill. You will know it because it is overgrown with long grass and weeds: no animal would graze on it, even if their herders allowed them to. This is the tomb of Pelops.

  ‘The entrance is not obvious. It’s on the northern flank, below the trunk of a dead olive tree, and is covered by brambles and a layer of earth. You will have to dig your way into it and knock down the wall you find beneath. Once you’ve done this you will find yourselves in the antechamber to the maze.’

  ‘And how will we find the tomb?’ Odysseus asked.

  ‘That I cannot tell you. All mazes are designed to confuse, but this one will dull your senses and have you losing all track of time and place. If you succeed, it’ll most likely be by chance, although you might be able to deduce a way through if you apply your intelligence, Odysseus.’

  ‘What do you know about the curse, Mistress?’ Eperitus questioned. ‘How can we protect ourselves from it?’

  ‘Protect yourselves?’ she queried. ‘There’s no protection from what lies within the tomb – not for mortal flesh, at least. But this much I can say, and I say it to you in particular, Eperitus. The only way to overcome the curse of Pelops’s tomb is for Ares’s gift to complete its purpose.’

  ‘I don’t understand!’

  ‘You will, when the time comes,’ she answered.

  And then she was gone, dissolving into the air as a dense spray of seawater dashed over the side of the galley, dousing Odysseus and Eperitus and waking the crew from their induced slumber.

  Chapter Sixteen

  PELOP’S TOMB

  Eupeithes looked up at the stars glinting and glittering above the broad roof of his house. They were a fierce white, like particles of daylight burning holes in the night, and as he traced the outlines of the constellations he wondered what a man would have to do to have his own image set among them. Then he smiled and shook his head gently: a ridiculous ambition, he mocked himself, for an overweight merchant who was neither king nor warrior.

  Antinous, his son, returned from the bushes at the edge of the expansive garden, where he had emptied his bladder. He dropped heavily onto the seat between Polyctor and Oenops and stared across at his father. Eupeithes had ordered chairs to be carried out to the lawn where it was less likely that eavesdropping slaves could overhear their treasonous talk and report it back to Penelope or her supporters.

  ‘What’s the point in having control of the Kerosia if you’re not going to do anything with it?’ Antinous asked, picking up the argument he had walked away from in anger only a few moments before. ‘Once Odysseus returns he’ll reappoint a new council and leave us back where we started – if he doesn’t execute us all first. I didn’t throw old Phronius to his death for that to happen. We have to act while we still can: appoint a new king then form an army, ready for Odysseus’s return –’

  ‘The Kerosia can’t just appoint a king,’ Oenops protested, shaking his white head firmly. ‘We haven’t the right or the power, not while the true king still lives.’

  Polyctor, a black-haired man with soft grey eyes and a scanty beard, leaned across and patted Antinous on the back.

  ‘You’ve grown up in a kingdom without a king, used to the idea the Kerosia makes all the decisions. It doesn’t, Antinous. We’re only a council, subordinate in everything to the power of the throne. The only time we get to make any decisions is when the king is absent.’

  ‘Well, he’s absent now –’

  Eupeithes raised his long, feminine hands for silence. There was no light in the garden and his mole-speckled skin looked grey and waxy as he smiled at the others.

  ‘You’re all correct, of course. Though we control the Kerosia, we remain but a council of advisers with limited authority – and certainly not enough to elect a new king. As Oenops implies, we can only do that if the king dies and leaves no successor. What power we do have will only last until the return of Odysseus. We therefore have to be realistic: if he comes back within the next few weeks or months, accompanied by a veteran army of loyal Ithacans, there is nothing we can do.’

  Antinous threw his hands up to the heavens in a despairing gesture.

  ‘Then why go to such lengths to take control of the Kerosia? Why did we try to have Telemachus murdered? We’ve risked all we have for nothing.’

  ‘Maybe,’ his father replied, ‘but I don’t think so. I made my wealth as a merchant, not a gambler, by relying on shrewdness rather than luck. This is no different. But before I outline the solutions, let me first delineate the problems. There are three: Odysseus’s return; Telemachus, his heir; and the loyalty of the Ithacan people.’

  ‘I’d like to hear your solution to O
dysseus,’ Oenops sniffed. ‘Didn’t you just say there’s nothing we can do if he comes back now?’

  ‘I was simply putting the case, my dear Oenops. The fact is he won’t be coming back. I’ve made certain of that.’

  ‘How?’ Antinous asked, sitting up.

  ‘I placed two men among the replacements that were sent to Troy in the spring, with instructions to murder Odysseus if the war ends and he survives. Both are more than capable of carrying out the task, and they know they’ll be generously rewarded if they succeed. What’s more, neither knows about the other. That way, they’ll act alone and if one fails the other won’t be implicated. I had to make doubly certain Odysseus doesn’t make it back to his beloved Ithaca. To our beloved Ithaca.’

  There was a self-satisfied grin on Eupeithes’s face as he revealed his cleverness and forethought to the others, a grin that was justified by their stunned reactions.

  ‘However, that still leaves us with the people and Telemachus,’ he continued. ‘When Odysseus fails to return from Troy, his son will inherit the throne at the age of twenty-one. That still gives us eleven years to dispose of him, but first we must lure him back from Sparta.’

  ‘Penelope won’t allow him to come back home,’ Polyctor said. ‘She won’t risk it.’

  ‘Neither can she bear to be apart from him for that long,’ Eupeithes countered. ‘You’ve seen how much she loves him. No, she knows she is in an impossible position: she has to remain in Ithaca, guarding her husband’s kingdom, and yet she can’t live without Telemachus at her side. Believe me, she will look for any opportunity to bring him back, any arrangement that will ensure his safety. I intend to offer her such an arrangement, even if it is unpalatable. And if she takes it, perhaps we won’t need to kill the boy anyway.’

  ‘You’re talking in riddles, father, and avoiding the central question,’ Antinous said. ‘Who will become king?’

  ‘Maybe you will, Son,’ Eupeithes answered, rising to his feet. ‘But not until we’ve dealt with the third problem – the consent of the people. They’re fiercely loyal to Laertes’s line and have a deeply rooted aversion to illegitimate rulers.’

  ‘They’ll obey whoever’s put over them,’ Antinous insisted.

  ‘They will not,’ his father snapped, his control failing momentarily. ‘They will not, Son, as I have found out to my own expense in the past. No, one can’t merely foist a king upon the simple-minded; their masters must have authenticity – a royal connection.’

  Polyctor’s brow knotted with confusion.

  ‘Then who? Odysseus’s cousin, Eurylochus, might have served our purpose, but he’s away with the army in Ilium. There’s no-one else we could set up as king.’

  Eupeithes locked his hands behind his back and looked up at the stars, as if seeking guidance from the gods. Then he turned his gaze on the others.

  ‘If Odysseus does not return after a set time – which we know he will not – we will insist he is presumed dead and that a new king takes his place to restore stability and leadership to Ithaca. I intend for that new king to be you, Antinous – a projection of myself upon the throne – but not by appointment. You must be chosen, and you must have legitimacy in the eyes of the people.’

  Oenops shook his head.

  ‘Impossible. The throne will be held for Telemachus until he’s of age. He has the right of succession.’

  ‘The ancient laws of Ithaca allow one exception,’ Eupeithes corrected him. ‘It’s an echo of the old days when kings were chosen through the female line, as they still are in some cities. If the king dies before his sons are old enough to assume the crown and the queen marries again, then her new husband will become king ahead of all other claimants.’

  ‘You want me to marry Penelope?’ Antinous exclaimed.

  Oenops shook his beard dismissively. ‘She’s Odysseus’s through and through. She’ll never marry another, not even if you were to bring her Odysseus’s bones in a box.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure, my old friend. Women are fickle things; given the right incentives they can be bent to anyone’s will. Now, here’s what I intend to do –’

  The storm had passed with unnatural quickness after the departure of the goddess, allowing the galley to reach the coast of the Peloponnese in safety. Seeing a huddle of stone huts overlooking a small, natural harbour a little below the mouth of the River Alpheius, Sthenelaus had guided the ship into the pocket of calm water and ordered the anchor stones to be thrown overboard. But when Diomedes and a handful of Argives had rowed ashore, they found their joy at being back on the soil of their homeland dampened. The old fishing hamlet had been deserted long ago.

  ‘Doesn’t bode well,’ he said later that evening, speaking to Odysseus and Eperitus as they sat by a fire overlooking the harbour, while the rest of the crew and the other Ithacans were busy bedding down in the abandoned houses. ‘This village should have at least fifty people in it, but by the looks of it no-one’s lived here for years. And yet the sea’s teeming with fish, there’s plenty of fresh water just a short walk to the river, and they’d have had a good crop of fruit and olives from all the trees around here. There’s only one reason can explain why they left. They were afraid of something.’

  Odysseus, who had been drawing strange patterns in the dust for most of the evening and studiously following them with a stick, raised his head.

  ‘Bandits,’ he said. ‘With the kings and their armies away in Troy there are barely enough men left to protect the cities, let alone these small villages. I fear for what we’ll find in the morning.’

  They rose again at the first light of dawn, though this was nothing more than a pale suffusion among the dark clouds that covered the skies. After they had breakfasted on barley broth, flatbread and fresh olives picked from the trees that surrounded the village, Odysseus called his Ithacan comrades to him and ordered them to put on their armour. Their greaves, leather cuirasses and helmets felt heavy and awkward after so many days aboard ship, where they had only needed their tunics and cloaks, and the feel of the shields on their arms and the spears in their hands gave them all a sense of impending danger, though none knew in what form it might come. Diomedes chose twelve of his best warriors for the expedition, leaving the remainder to guard the galley under the charge of Sthenelaus. Then, with small bags of provisions and skins of fresh water hanging over their shoulders, they sloped their spears and tramped off in double-file under the silent gaze of those left behind.

  The River Alpheius was but a short distance north from the harbour. It was broad and fast-flowing as it poured out into the sea, and in the distance they could see the mountains from which it harvested its waters. The low, fumbling peaks seemed to prop up the hanging canvas of cloud that brooded with dark intent in the east, but as they walked with the river on their left Eperitus’s thoughts were not on the threat of rain but on the dilapidated state of the country around them. The land on both sides of the Alpheius was choked with weeds and long grass, where once it must have been filled with crops irrigated from the river. The pastureland on the hills that rose up behind was also overgrown. Though there were occasional sheepfolds, the tumbledown walls were empty and there was no sign of the flocks that had once occupied them. Even the road they were walking along was almost lost beneath a sea of knee-high grass and was only recognisable by the wheel ruts left by the farmers’ carts that had trundled along it in happier times. Most notable to Eperitus’s mind, though, was the lack of people. He and his companions were the only travellers on the road and there were no boats passing up or down the river. Like the fishing hamlet they had first encountered, all but one of the villages they passed through had been deserted for some time. The exception was a huddle of pitiable cottages, surrounded by narrow strips of farmed land where the heads of the barley bowed beneath a gentle west wind. The doors of all the other dwellings they passed had been thrown from their hinges to reveal lifeless and empty interiors, but here they were firmly shut against the strange soldiers who had wandered up fro
m the direction of the coast. A doll made from wood and rags lay abandoned in the middle of the road, kept company by a single sandal that Eperitus guessed had slipped from a woman’s foot as she hurriedly scooped up her child and swept it back into the house. It was a poor village – too poor, perhaps, for the bandits who had forced the other villagers to flee – and the Argives and Ithacans passed through without pausing.

  At no point during the rest of the journey did Eperitus’s sharp senses tell him they were being watched, even from a distance. It was eerie and unsettling and hardly a word was spoken as the band of warriors trudged through the unhappy country. For the first time they were witnessing the hidden cost of the war against Troy, and it seemed Odysseus’s guess of the evening before was right. Without the protection of their kings, the people had withdrawn to the walled towns and cities for safety from the groups of armed thieves that roamed the countryside. The land had been abandoned and trade would have all but died out, to be replaced by poverty, hunger and disease. And if the war lasted for much longer, there would be no Greece to return to.

  After a while they passed through a knot of trees and came to a place that Eperitus felt was vaguely familiar. The river was broken by a series of rocks and the soft sound of the water now became a roar as it crashed against them. In the centre, where the river was deepest and the current quickest, three boulders stood up like black knuckles, while a shelf of rock jutted out from the nearest bank to make the passage by boat perilous indeed.

  ‘Recognise the place?’ Odysseus asked.

  Eperitus gave a laugh and nodded. ‘Of course, this is where we crossed the river on our way to Sparta twenty years ago. Didn’t we build a raft further upstream from here, where the waters are calmer?’