The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

by Iliffe, Glyn

  A number of Greeks now moved to block the advance of the handful of Trojans. At the same moment, another group of Greek soldiery came running around the same corner the Trojans had first appeared from. Neoptolemus was at their head, unmistakeable in his father’s god-made armour.

  ‘There he is!’ Neoptolemus shouted. ‘After him.’

  Priam’s son turned at the sound of Neoptolemus’s voice, knowing that his route to the temple of Zeus was blocked and that he would have to face Achilles’s ferocious son in battle. Taking a spear from one his companions, he launched it into the pack of pursuing Greeks. The throw was straight and powerful, but Neoptolemus raised his magnificent shield and knocked it aside with contempt. With a hateful shout the two sides ran at each other, their shields crashing and weapons ringing loudly. Odysseus stood up, trying to see more of the uneven struggle. Strangely, he felt himself hoping the Trojans would give a good account of themselves, or at least make a break for the temple. But the fight was over almost immediately, with Neoptolemus pushing his way out of the crowd and bellowing triumphantly, the severed head of Priam’s son held aloft in his hand.

  A despairing cry tore through the night air as he showed his trophy to the baying soldiers. Odysseus looked at the pillared entrance to the temple, where an old man stood with his fists raised to the heavens. He was surrounded by half a dozen crying women, several of them pulling at the man’s cloak in an attempt to keep him within the confines of the temple. Their efforts were in vain: the man pushed them away and staggered down the broad steps towards the towering statue of Zeus that fronted the building.

  Without his black wig and face powder, Priam was only recognisable to Odysseus by his great height and the wailing figure of Hecabe following him from the temple. The old king ignored his wife’s pleading and stooped to pick up a discarded spear. That such a frail being was able to lift the weapon was amazing, and as he raised it above his shoulder and called to Neoptolemus the young warrior merely laughed and tossed Priam the head of his son.

  ‘What are you waiting for, you old fool?’ he goaded, throwing his arms open and standing with his legs apart on the flagstones. ‘Avenge your son’s death.’

  ‘Priam, no!’ Odysseus shouted, guessing what was about to happen and running out from the doorway.

  If Priam heard him, he paid no attention and hurled the spear with all his remaining strength. The throw was pathetic, skittering across the floor to be stopped by Neoptolemus’s sandalled foot. The Myrmidon prince’s mocking features were instantly transformed. Curling back his lip, he sprinted towards the king of Troy, his sword raised high above his head. Priam turned and staggered back to the temple, sprawling over the steps as Neoptolemus caught up with him. Odysseus barged his way through the crowd of black-clad Myrmidons and called out.

  ‘Stop! Neoptolemus, stop!’

  Neoptolemus was now standing astride Priam on the steps. He turned to see Odysseus running towards him, then with a scornful grin reached down to seize Priam’s thinning locks of grey hair. Pulling the old man’s head back, he lifted his blade and brought it down with a savage blow, slicing through the throat. The head came away and swung from his hand, dripping trails of blood over Neoptolemus’s legs and feet. For a brief instant silence pressed down on the scene. The king of Troy was dead. The Trojan people’s cause was finished. This was the moment that ended the war.

  Then screams broke the stillness. The women gathered at the top of the steps – Priam’s surviving daughters – cried out in horror at the murder of their father and fled back into the temple. Odysseus slumped back against the plinth of the statue of Zeus, while behind him the Myrmidons and the other Greeks gave a victorious shout and rushed towards the holy sanctuary.

  ‘Come on,’ Neoptolemus encouraged them. ‘Agamemnon ordered that no stone was to be left standing on another. Tear this place down; take what you want, including the women – you’ve earned it. Then burn it to the ground!’

  Odysseus watched Hecabe drag herself to her feet, only to be knocked down again by the stampeding soldiers. A spearman paused beside her, stooped down and proceeded to tear at the old woman’s clothing. Odysseus kicked him onto his back and pressed the point of his sword against his throat.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ he hissed.

  The Myrmidon stared back at him angrily, then dragged himself back on his elbows and pushed the weapon aside.

  ‘Your welcome to the old hag,’ he replied with a sneer, before leaping to his feet and running into the temple.

  Screams were now emanating from the open doorway. Odysseus looked up wearily and saw Neoptolemus still standing on the steps, wiping his blade on Priam’s cloak. The Ithacan fought to control his anger before walking up to Achilles’s son.

  ‘You’ve earned your father’s armour tonight, Neoptolemus,’ he began. ‘Achilles was a savage man, but I never thought I’d see his brutality outdone.’

  Neoptolemus laughed at his contempt.

  ‘Wasn’t this what you brought me here to do, Odysseus? To fulfil the oracle and end the royal line of Troy? Then don’t complain if I choose to accomplish my destiny with as much cruelty and ruthlessness as is necessary.’

  ‘The royal line isn’t ended yet,’ Odysseus told him, then turned his back on the prince and walked over to Hecabe.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, helping her to her feet. ‘I’ll keep you safe.’

  Chapter Forty-two

  THE SNAKE PIT

  Eperitus’s feet hit the earthen floor where the flames of the torch had cleared a circle among the writhing mass of snakes. His legs buckled beneath him and he fell onto his front, only to feel a searing pain shoot through his arm. His first thought was that he had been bitten, but as he rolled away he felt the heat of the torch and realised he had been burned. He lay there for two or three heartbeats, listening with horror to the hiss of the snakes all around him, then pushed himself up onto his haunches.

  His fingers closed about the stem of the torch and he swung it round in an arc. It fluttered briefly and blazed up again, revealing a sight that filled him with revulsion. A sea of serpentine bodies surrounded him, squirming and thrashing as they retreated from the flame. Dozens of heads rose up, exposing pink, ribbed mouths with fangs that glistened in the torchlight. The sight of them made him nauseous, contracting his stomach muscles so tightly that he had to press his hand over his mouth to stop himself from vomiting. He swivelled on one foot and swept the torch in a circle about himself, forcing the snakes as far back as he could while he searched for Astynome among them. She was nowhere to be seen and for a horrifying moment he imagined her body had already been lost beneath the vile creatures. Despair gripped him, knowing that no-one could survive the venomous bite of even one snake, let alone so many.

  It was the darkest moment he could remember since the murder of his daughter. He had been powerless, then, to stop Agamemnon from sacrificing Iphigenia to appease the gods, and now he had failed Astynome too. Apheidas had murdered her and deprived him of his only joy in life, his only hope for the future. A blackness descended on his heart. He looked around at the countless snakes surrounding him and pictured them crawling closer and closer, finally darting towards him and burying their fangs deep into his flesh. And when death had overcome him they would cover his body with theirs, just as somewhere in that wide pit they had already covered Astynome’s. It seemed an ironic end – so different to the glorious death he had always expected – and yet he supposed it would be easy enough. He lowered the torch and watched as the serpents stopped retreating before it.

  Then he heard a noise – small, almost lost among the constant, menacing hiss. A sob. Quickly, he raised the torch and held it in the direction of the sound. Another sob was followed by a low moan, and then he saw her, a black-robed figure lying on the steps above the deadly reach of the creatures below. Life and the desperate love of it came rushing back into Eperitus’s veins.

  ‘Astynome!’

  He waved the torch in another circle about h
im, driving the snakes back again, but the torch was dying and he knew time was running out.

  ‘Astynome, can you hear me?’

  The crumpled figure groaned again and began to move. There was a squeal of pain followed by a sharp intake of breath, but she raised her head and looked at him groggily.

  ‘Eperitus?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me. Are you badly hurt?’

  ‘Gods!’ she exclaimed, pushing herself up on her elbows. ‘The snakes!’

  ‘You’re safe. You landed on the steps, but you might have broken something.’

  ‘I think I’ve sprained my ankle. I don’t know if it’s broken, though.’

  ‘Wait, I’ll come to you.’

  ‘But the snakes –’

  ‘Don’t move, Astynome.’

  Eperitus looked down at the floor and the mass of legless, lipless creatures that carpeted it. The flame sputtered, its light already receding so that the hundreds of snakes became a single, glistening throng that coiled and slithered in the shadows all about him, their eyes momentarily reflecting the fire as he passed the torch this way and that. Again he felt his stomach muscles tighten and he had to fight the weakness in his limbs that forbade him to take the first step. Then he recalled Apheidas’s words: that for a man to conquer his fears he had to face them. He thought, too, of what his father had told him about being bitten as a child, a traumatic memory that his mind had buried deep in his unconscious to leave only a fear and loathing of snakes behind. But the gods had protected him then and they would protect him now.

  He took a step towards Astynome and the snakes retreated before his torch, though not as far as he would have liked. He threw a glance at the foot of the stairs, not wanting to take his eyes for more than a moment from the deadly reptiles that surrounded him. The steps were still five or six paces away, not nearly close enough to jump onto, and stopped half a man’s height above the floor.

  ‘The torch’s going out,’ Astynome warned, desperation entering her voice.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got an idea.’

  Ideas were more Odysseus’s domain than his own, but fear had sharpened his mind and he knew there was but one chance to get out alive. He waved the torch again and took another step towards Astynome. The snakes moved back, but only a little. One unfortunate strike now might reach him. Quickly, he slipped his grandfather’s shield from his back and let it lean against his shoulder, while with his free hand he untied the knot in its leather sling and loosened the excess. He pulled his dagger from his belt and cut the sling, winding one end tightly around his wrist.

  ‘Eperitus!’

  The torch fizzled and went out. He tossed it aside and threw the broad shield down onto the coiling, twisting brood before him. There was a sharp hiss and a snap from behind: one of the snakes had darted at him and missed. Eperitus jumped onto the shield, feeling the soft, spongy mass beneath the leather as he sprang off again and reached for the stairs. Somehow he found them, his ribs colliding painfully with the stone steps, despite his breastplate, as he clawed his way to safety. He sensed bodies striking at the air about his ankles and then he was up, safe, with Astynome sobbing as she tried frantically to haul his heavy bulk higher up the steps.

  ‘It’s alright,’ he gasped. ‘It’s alright, I’m safe.’

  ‘Have you been bitten?’ she asked, the panic clear in her voice.

  ‘No, no. I didn’t feel anything.’

  He lay on his back, looking up at the orange-hued clouds passing over the pit, and shuddered from head to foot. The convulsive shivering did not stop until Astynome lowered her face over his and kissed him.

  ‘Thank you for coming after me,’ she whispered.

  He reached up and touched her cheek. ‘I wouldn’t have abandoned you. But next time I’ll use the steps.’

  She smiled and he sat up, feeling the tug of the leather strap around his wrist. Taking it in both hands, he pulled his grandfather’s shield slowly from the pit, pausing only to make sure there were no snakes attached to it before knotting the two ends of the strap and slinging the shield onto his back once more. He bent down and lifted Astynome into his arms, then carried her back up to the garden above.

  ‘Did Apheidas escape?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t stay back as you ordered. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Take you somewhere safe,’ he said, lowering her onto a stone bench and kneeling before her. ‘Which ankle is it?’

  ‘That one. Ouch! Be careful.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s broken, but I doubt you’ll be able to walk on it for a few days.’

  ‘What about Apheidas? Are you going after him?’

  ‘And leave you here? Listen to what’s happening out there. Look at the sky, the smoke … They’ll be looting this house and putting it to the torch before long and I won’t abandon you to be raped and murdered. Your life is far more important to me than his death. I’m only sorry I didn’t listen to you earlier.’

  As he spoke, they heard crashes and shouts erupt from the hall.

  ‘Where’s that lead to?’ Eperitus asked, picking Astynome up again and nodding towards the door that Apheidas had escaped through.

  ‘An alley alongside the temple of Apollo.’

  Eperitus crossed the garden as quickly as he could with Astynome in his arms and kicked open the door. To his right, the alley continued to the battlements and bent round to the right again, with a side entrance in the temple wall opposite. To the left he saw the small square he had crossed earlier to enter Apheidas’s house and ran towards it. A body now lay face-down at its centre – an old man with a dagger protruding from his ribs. Astynome gasped at the sight and turned her face away.

  ‘We’ll see a lot more corpses before this night’s over,’ Eperitus said.

  He ran on, following Astynome’s directions as they headed for the gate to the lower city. Buildings were burning on all sides, throwing orange sparks and columns of black smoke into the air, while here and there groups of marauding soldiers shouldered open doors and ransacked houses at sword point. The screams from within declared the fate of the occupants. After they had seen the second body of a child, Astynome buried her face in Eperitus’s shoulder and refused to look any more. Then a harsh call rang out and two Greeks blocked Eperitus’s path.

  ‘Give us the woman,’ the first demanded. ‘We’ll pay for her. Look.’

  He pointed to two other men, standing in a doorway surrounded by looted goods. One of them lifted a skin of wine in one hand and a copper bowl in the other.

  ‘Not interested,’ Eperitus replied, and made to move around them.

  The second man stepped in front of him, blocking his way. He was tall and strong, and an axe hung loosely but menacingly from his right hand. Eperitus felt Astynome’s arms tighten about him.

  ‘It’s a fair exchange,’ the man said. ‘We don’t want to cheat a fellow Greek. And we don’t want to kill a countryman, either, unless we have to.’

  Eperitus took two steps back towards a nearby wall and lowered Astynome to her feet. She laid a hand against the wall for support.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ the first man said.

  The smile dropped from his face when Eperitus drew his sword. The man placed both hands about the haft of his axe and was hurriedly joined by his comrades from the doorway. Then a voice called out.

  ‘Eperitus!’

  Eperitus turned to see Omeros running towards him, accompanied by Antiphus and Polites. At the sight of the giant Ithacan and the bow in Antiphus’s hand, Eperitus’s assailants moved back and retrieved their trinkets, before slipping off into the shadows.

  ‘Excellent timing, Omeros,’ Eperitus greeted him. ‘Truly excellent.’

  He embraced each of the Ithacans in turn, elated to see friendly faces amid the chaos of Troy’s demise.

  ‘Is it like this everywhere?

  Antiphus nodded. ‘Worse in most places. Agamemnon ordered every male Trojan to be murdered and
every building to be burned. Diomedes, Idomeneus and a few of the others are trying to restore some order, but the whole army’s been struck with madness.’

  ‘Have you seen Odysseus?’ Omeros asked. ‘We’ve been looking for him.’

  Eperitus felt sudden shame that he had not given a single thought to his king’s safety since leaving him and Menelaus on their search for Helen.

  ‘He was heading for the palace when we parted. I’ll go see if he’s still there.’

  ‘We’ll come with you,’ Polites said.

  ‘No. I want you to take Astynome back to the ships at once. Avoid danger and don’t delay – I’m holding each of you responsible for her safety. And she’s hurt her leg; you’ll need to carry her, Polites.’

  Polites nodded and before Astynome could protest, plucked her up in his broad arms as if she weighed no more than a child. Eperitus stroked her hair and kissed her.