Beware of Greeks

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Even longer in my case,’ added Nestor as he arrived at Odysseus’ shoulder.

  ‘So, it looks as though we need a court physician, and quickly—unless someone else has been with Chiron on Mount Pelion more recently than we have.’

  The captain who had led me from the gate to my chamber appeared next. ‘The court physician is the Egyptian Hesira,’ he said. ‘I shall have him summoned at once.’ He called to a servant who was standing gaping in the corridor and despatched him with a few terse words.

  ‘I believe eight men could lift the prince,’ said Odysseus. ‘Three each side with one for his head and one for his ankles. And if you will direct us, I think we could carry him to his chamber. It would be more fitting for this Hesira to tend him there in private rather than here beneath the eyes of the whole court.’ I looked around at his words and I could see what he meant—even the cooks and servers had come through to see what was going on, and the king himself was no doubt on his way as well.

  Ajax was raised shoulder high by Odysseus, his oarsmen and several strapping servants led by the guard captain. In the absence of anyone better qualified, I took his lolling head in my one good arm while Nestor took his ankles. The captain was about to lead us to his chamber when the rotund figure of King Lycomedes appeared in the doorway of the otherwise empty megaron and his voice echoed down the corridor. ‘Lochagos Adonis, what is going on?’ he demanded, giving the captain his full formal title.

  Captain Adonis paused to answer his king. ‘Prince Ajax has been overcome by some malady, Majesty.’

  ‘Have you sent for Hesira? The poor young man must be tended at once.’ The king came forward as he spoke.

  ‘We have, Majesty.’

  ‘Then carry the prince to his chamber. Hesira will meet you there.’ Lycomedes turned down a side passage and vanished.

  With Captain Adonis as our guide, we carried Ajax along the labyrinth of corridors to the room he had been assigned by his genial host. As we went, so Odysseus talked. ‘I’ve never seen Ajax unwell. Not only is he spectacularly fit and unbelievably healthy, I’ve always assumed that anything which might cause him to sicken would in all likelihood be seen off by his massive frame.’

  ‘Therefore,’ I suggested, ‘whatever has done this must be extremely powerful.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he answered pensively.

  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ said Nestor, ‘when I was on the way to Colchis with Jason I remember even Hercules falling ill. In fact…’

  This reminiscence was sufficient to take us to Ajax’ chamber where we found a pair of his personal servants waiting. As with Elpenor and the rest of Odysseus’ men, these were broad-shouldered, battle hardened crewmen, fitting to attend a great warrior such as their leader. They were surprised by the prince’s state but by no means rendered helpless with shock. In stead, like Elpenor and the men bearing the massive body, they came forward looking for a way to help. Together with the men who had been carrying him, they laid Prince Ajax on his bed. As I had been in charge of the massive head, I stayed close by it even when it was lying safely on a rolled-up cloak. Nestor stood looking down at him with a worried frown, silent for once.

  ‘The prince ate nothing at the feast,’ said Odysseus, ‘and only made a show of drinking the toasts as far as I could see. Did he have anything to eat or drink before he went through to the megaron?’

  ‘Indeed he did,’ answered one of the servants. ‘An amphora of the finest wine was sent for the prince to enjoy as he readied himself.’ The servant pointed to an ornate wine jar which was sitting on a table with an alabaster goblet beside it.

  ‘Where did it come from?’ asked Odysseus.

  ‘We supposed it came from King Lycomedes. I’m pretty certain it was brought by one of his servants.’

  ‘But no-one actually told you where it had come from?’ said Nestor, and was answered by a shame-faced shake of the head.

  ‘And the prince seemed fit and well before he drank it?’ asked Odysseus.

  ‘He was. And he seemed well when he left for the feast,’ said the servant, glancing at his mate who nodded confirmation.

  Odysseus picked up the goblet and sniffed it. He frowned. ‘Then we had better find a way to make the prince empty his belly,’ he said. ‘Because it seems certain that whatever was in this originally is in his stomach now. And that is what is doing the damage.’

  iv

  Nestor stirred. ‘The physician Hesira should be able to advise,’ he said. ‘Though I’ve never really trusted Egyptians myself. I remember King Idomeneus telling me about some Egyptian traders who came to Crete… Rogues and thieves the lot of them…’

  Lycomedes’ physician arrived at that point and if he heard Nestor’s remarks he gave no sign. He was a tall, dark-skinned man with an extremely long neck, an angular face, a shaven head and the darkest eyes I had ever seen. Though clearly not of Achaean origin, he wore a Greek himation. He asked exactly the same questions as Odysseus had asked and came to the same conclusion. ‘I have a tincture that will induce vomiting,’ he said, his accent thick but his words perfectly understandable. ‘Keep close watch on the prince while I go and fetch it.’

  There was no problem about following Hesira’s advice, for no sooner had he departed than the anxious king himself appeared once more with what seemed like most of his courtiers close behind. Ajax had been here for several days and it was clear that no-one else of consequence had visited until Nestor and Odysseus arrived, for the prince’s chamber was larger and more beautifully decorated even than Odysseus’ had been in Phthia. There was room for a good number of people to come and watch the prince’s treatment. Odysseus caught my eye and we shared a flicker of a smile—we might just as well have called the physician to the passage where Ajax fell; there were even more onlookers in here now than there had been there.

  A certain number of the visitors soon regretted their inquisitiveness, however—mostly those closest to the massive prince’s sick bed. Hesira came hurrying back with a phial of liquid in his hand and an assistant carrying a large bowl close behind him. The physician and his associate pushed through the crowd of onlookers until they were beside me at the head of the bed. ‘Hold his head,’ the physician ordered and I obeyed as best I could with two strong hands but only one fully functioning arm. The boy with the bowl came closer still. ‘Lift his head. Can someone support his shoulders?’ said Hesira, seeing the difficulty I was having. Odysseus and Nestor obliged, reaching in from behind the bed-head to so. When his patient was half sitting up with his head steadily over the bowl, Hesira expertly took hold of the prince’s nose. As soon as Ajax opened his mouth to breathe, the Egyptian poured some of the phial’s contents through the moustache straight into it, released the nose and pushed the lower jaw up so that the mouth closed again. Ajax stirred, automatically swallowing rather than choking. Hesira turned to his audience. ‘Now he said, I suggest you all stand…’

  That was as far as he got. The huge prince’s massive frame heaved. Hesira skipped nimbly back, the boy with the bowl leaned further forward. Such was the force with which Ajax emptied his stomach, however, and the enormous quantity of liquid which came out of him, that the bowl could not have held it even had the convulsions not jerked his head and shoulders out of our grasps. Everyone nearby was splattered, King Lycomedes only saving his gorgeous robes with an unexpectedly athletic backward leap. The room emptied long before the prince’s final heave, leaving only Odysseus and Nestor still trying to keep those massive shoulders steady, myself—though I had lost control of his head long ago—Hesira, his helper and Ajax’ two servants. The stench was dreadful; something about it made me think of mice. I could see the Egyptian’s narrow nostrils twitching too and suspicion move toward certainty in those dark eyes of his.

  ‘Hemlock?’ wondered Odysseus when the prince at last settled back and conversation was possible once more.

  ‘I fear so,’ nodded Hesira.

  ‘So it was definitely no accident. It was a deliberate attempt to poison
the prince. We need to discover who sent him the wine because it certainly cannot have been the king!’ Odysseus lowered his voice. ‘And try to discover why anyone would want to poison the prince.’

  Hesira nodded once again, his full lips thinning and his expression settled into a worried frown. ‘We cannot easily move the prince so it is fortunate his bed remains unsoiled. I will clean his face myself and oversee the cleaning of the room. Even his vomit may be dangerous. Then I will collect some more potions in case he relapses and ask his men here to keep careful watch on him tonight. One failed attempt may lead to another, more successful, one.’

  ‘That would be wise,’ said Odysseus as he and Nestor, who also escaped befoulment because of their position behind the sick man’s shoulders—as I had escaped myself because of my place behind his head—led the way carefully out of the room.

  ‘One of us had better tell the king what we’ve discovered,’ said Odysseus.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said Nestor. ‘We’re not what you’d call old friends but at least we go back a long way. And of course as a member of Jason’s crew I once knew Medea pretty well, and there was nothing she didn’t know about poisons and poisoning…’

  ***

  ‘And I’d better warn Lord Hypatios,’ said Odysseus as Nestor bustled away. ‘If there’s murder afoot, he’d better watch out for himself.’ He set of purposefully and I followed in his footsteps without a second thought. The first thing we did was to enlist the help of a couple of palace servants who were carrying lamps with steady and reliable flames to the sleeping chambers of some minor courtiers. On Odysseus’ orders, they escorted us through the dark corridors to Lord Hypatios’ accommodation in stead. Odysseus relieved one of them of his lamp and, calling the Phthian lord’s name, we entered. But his room was empty. There was no sign of the man nor his sinister servants. The captain shrugged and returned the lamp. ‘Where else might he be?’ he asked. By way of an answer, the palace servants guided us to the most likely alternative locations where we thought we might find him. As we searched, we found ourselves passing through increasingly dark and empty corridors, past chambers where lamps had been extinguished and the snores of heavy sleepers reverberated. After a lengthy and exhaustive search, Odysseus gave up with a shrug. ‘He’ll just have to look out for himself,’ he decided. He kept the lamp he had borrowed to search Lord Hypatios’ quarters and dismissed the servants. ‘I’m still worried about Ajax, though. I think I’ll check on him one more time before I turn in.’ He turned to me. ‘Want to come?’ The alternative seemed to be to try and find my way back to my own room through the labyrinth of corridors in the dark. A labyrinth where the monster in place of a legendary Minotaur might well be a murderer intent on murdering me. I nodded more forcefully than was strictly necessary and set off after him once more. I might have found the maze of corridors confusing, but my captain apparently had no such trouble. He led us straight to the prince’s accommodation.

  Ajax seemed to be resting well, his face and accommodation both clean and fragrant. His men were keeping watch. ‘Did the physician bring the extra potions?’ asked Odysseus apparently without a second thought. The two men exchanged a glance. They shared a shrug and shook their heads. ‘He has not yet returned,’ said one of them.

  Odysseus frowned. ‘But he left long ago, before we started looking for Lord Hypatios!’ he shook his head. ‘Though I can see he tended to the prince’s cleanliness in the mean time. Even so, I’d better see what he’s up to. Do either of you know the way to his quarters?’ The man who had just spoken said, ‘I do.’ He took one of the lamps that were illuminating the chamber and led us out.

  The captain and I followed the prince’s servant along the dark corridors quickly and silently. Odysseus was pensive, tired and not at all talkative. I kept glancing at him but his attention seemed primarily to be focussed on the flame of the lamp he was holding. Almost unconsciously, we bunched together, keeping close to the unsteady brightness of the two tall lamp-flames. My eyes were bad enough with the bolts of brightness dancing at the edges of my vision, growing brighter and more frequent the more tired I became. Because of this, I was careful to look away from the flames themselves, preferring to watch the way our shadows loomed over us, reaching up the walls and across the ceilings. So, almost accidentally, my eyes became used to the darkness. I suppose it was because of this that I was able to see the brightness coming out of an open doorway quite clearly some time before we reached the room. I did not have to exercise any of my captain’s logic at all to guess that the one bright doorway in the long dark corridor must belong to the physician, still hard at work, no doubt, preparing restorative potions for Prince Ajax.

  ‘Is it much further?’ demanded Odysseus abruptly.

  The servant and I both answered at once, ‘We’re nearly there.’

  But even as we answered, I thought I saw a flicker of shadow passing through the brightness, as though some dark spirit had flitted out of the place to vanish into the shadows. ‘Captain,’ I whispered. ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘See what?’ he asked, glancing up from his pensive study of the lamp flame.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘A shadow, I think.’

  ‘A shadow? What sort of a shadow?’

  ‘I don’t know… Of a person, perhaps. Someone in a long, dark robe. I couldn’t see clearly and it was gone in a heartbeat.’

  This conversation, brief though it was, took us to Hesira’s doorway and the three of us entered together. The physician was seated facing away from us in a high-backed chair that rose to the level of his shoulders. He was sitting, immobile, apparently looking straight ahead at the piles of phials and tinctures on the table in front of him. His hands lay either side of the medicines, half-open and utterly still.

  He would have been slumped forward, face down in the midst of them, I suppose, except for the fact that the dagger whose cross-guard was caught on the back of the chair was holding him erect as its blade ran into the nape of his neck, through his spine and the various tubes of his throat to protrude for a finger’s length out at the front, supporting the weight of his lower jaw and holding his dead head high.

  v

  ‘That’s one of the daggers I gave to the king,’ said Odysseus. ‘I had them all specially sharpened. How in the name of all the gods did it get here?’

  He looked at the servant as though expecting an answer from him though I knew he was really talking to himself. Ajax’ man was beyond answering in any case. He stood there, ashen-faced and shaking. I leaned forward and gently took the lamp off him for fear that he was about to drop it. ‘He’s… He’s dead,’ said the servant. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’.

  ‘If your flickering shadow was actually a person rather than your imagination or a trick of your eyesight,’ said Odysseus to me, ‘then it might well have been the murderer.’ He reached out and felt the dead physician’s cheek. I watched his hand with a kind of horror—which immediately intensified: I could have sworn the dead man’s eyelid flickered.

  ‘Captain!’ I gasped. ‘I think his eyes just moved.’

  Odysseus moved round until he could see the physician’s face full on. He gazed at the wide eyes for a moment. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘No movement there. But his skin’s still warm. That makes it more likely that you did see the man that ran the dagger through his neck. You!’ He turned back to the servant. ‘You seem to know your way around the palace pretty well. We need to rouse the household! What’s the best way to go about that?’

  The servant stared mindlessly at the captain. His mouth moved as though he were drowning.

  ‘Captain Adonis would probably be the best place to start,’ I observed.

  ‘Good idea, lad. You! Do you know where you can find Captain Adonis?’

  ‘Captain Adonis?’ repeated the servant, some semblance of understanding creeping into his words. ‘I know where his quarters are.’

  ‘Yes. Go and find him. Report what has happened and tell him I sugge
st that he rouses the household as soon as he possibly can. We must search out this murderer before he escapes or before he strikes again.’

  The servant turned obediently towards the door but before he could leave I put the lamp back in his hand now that it was a good deal steadier. And he would need it to guide him through the dark and suddenly sinister corridors. The moment after he left, Odysseus was in action. He scoured the corpse and the chamber for anything that might add to our knowledge, such as it was, of who had done this. But there was nothing more for him to see and we had no time to indulge in further examination if we were to stand any chance of finding the culprit. He soon left the dead room at a fast walk, calling back to me as I limped after him as quickly as I could, ‘Our main priority now must be to get back to Ajax as soon as possible because he only has one guard left. There is a murderer at work here; perhaps an associate of the man who murdered Dion and his apprentice. He’s failed to kill Ajax once though it must have been him who sent the poisoned wine, and logic suggests most strongly that he’ll try again while he has the time and opportunity. Remember, if you saw him escape into the shadows, he will have seen us approaching far more clearly. He’ll know his time is limited therefore he will have to act quickly—or try once again tomorrow by which time the whole palace will be on the look-out and the proposition much more difficult and dangerous.’

  Moved by the urgency of his own words, Odysseus started to run down the corridor, shading the lamp-flame with one hand in case his speed put it out. I did my best to follow him, but my leg simply would not allow me to keep up. Fortunately, when he finally left me behind, I was right at the beginning of the corridor that led up to Ajax’ room. I saw him vanish through the distant doorway and, more certain of where I was and where the captain was, I slowed, trying to ease my cramped legs and catch my breath. The passageway in front of me was long and straight. I was cloaked in shadows at one end of it because the captain had the lamp. There was light spilling out of the open doorway at the other end. As with the passages below Peleus’ palace in Phthia, there were openings along the sides that led either into other rooms or into yet more labyrinthine corridors. The slowing of my footsteps also had the effect of killing the sound my sandals made on the stone floor. As my breathing slowed, so even the hammering of my heart quietened. Although I was still dressed in my white linen tunic with pale face, arms and legs, I was cloaked in shadow now that Odysseus had taken the lamp away with him. All of which, I suppose, made me almost impossible to see and hear. A situation that became important when not one but two shapeless figures stepped silently out of the side corridor that opened closest to Ajax’ room. Close enough to the brightness shining out through its doorway to be framed clearly and unmistakably against it.