Ben Bova - Orion and the Conqueror

“Father,” he called as he stepped through the tent’s flap, “I’ve found a recruit for you.”

I ducked through and saw a solidly built man with thick gray hair and a grizzled beard sitting at a wooden table. He was obviously at his noon meal; the table was covered with bowls of steaming stew and fruit. A silver flagon stood next to a jeweled wine cup. Three young slave women knelt in the far corner of the tent.

The man looked oddly familiar to me: piercing jet-black eyes, wide shoulders, and beneath his half-opened robe I saw a broad, powerful chest. His bare arms bore heavy dark hair crisscrossed with white scars. He stared hard at me as I stood before his table, tugging at his grizzled beard as if trying to stir his memory.

“Orion,” he said at last.

I staggered back a step with surprise. “My Lord Odysseus,” I said.

It was truly Odysseus, whom I had served in the siege of Troy. He was older, gray, his face spiderwebbed with wrinkles. He introduced the young officer to me as his son Telemakos.

He smiled at me, although there was puzzlement in his eyes. “The years have been good to you. You don’t seem to have changed a bit since I last saw you on the plain of Ilios.”

“Are we in Ithaca?” I asked.

Odysseus’ face became grave. “Ithaca is far from here,” he murmured “My kingdom is there. My wife.” The steel returned to his voice. “And the dead bodies of the dogs who would have taken my kingdom, my house, and my wife to themselves.”

“The city before us is Epeiros,” said Telemakos.

“Epeiros?” I knew that name. It was the city where Olympias was to be born.

Odysseus shook his grizzled head wearily. “After all the years that I have been away from my home and my wife, the gods have seen fit to take me away once again.”

“The gods can be cruel,” I said.

“Indeed.”

Odysseus bade us both to sit down and share his meal. The slave women scurried out of the tent to bring more food while we pulled up wooden stools to the table. Although I had been a lowly thes when I had first met Odysseus, less than a slave, he had recognized my fighting prowess and made me a member of his house.

Now, as the slaves ladled the hot stew into wooden bowls for us, Odysseus told me his long and painful story.

When he left the smoking ruins of Troy to return to his kingdom of Ithaca, his ships were battered by a vicious storm and scattered across the wild sea.

“Poseidon has always been against me,” he said, quite matter-of-fact. “Of course, it did not help that I killed one of his sons, later on.”

He grew old trying to get back to Ithaca. Ships sank under him; most of his men drowned. One by one his surviving men deserted him, despairing of ever seeing Ithaca again, choosing to remain in the strange lands where they washed up rather than continue the struggle to reach home.

“And all that while, every unmarried swain in the lands around Ithaca was camping at my household door, courting my Penelope, laying siege to my wife and my goods.”

“They acted as if they owned the kingdom,” said Telemakos. “They even tried to murder me.”

“Thank the gods for Penelope’s good sense. She has the strength of a warrior, that woman does!” Odysseus grinned. “She refused to believe that I was dead. She would not accept any of those louts as husband.”

The two of them went into great detail about how the aspiring noblemen behaved like a plague of locusts, eating and drinking, arguing and fighting, cuffing the servants, assaulting the women, and threatening to kill everyone in the household if Penelope did not choose one of them to marry.

“I finally made it back to Ithaca to find my kingdom in ruins and my house under siege by these swine.”

Telemakos smiled grimly. “But we made short work of them, didn’t we, father?”

Odysseus laughed out loud. “It was more play than work. After I felled the first three or four of them the others went dashing away like rats at the sight of a terrier. Did they think that a man who has scaled the walls of Troy and fought real heroes in single combat would be frightened of a courtyard full of fatted suitors?”

“We cut them down like a scythe goes through wheat,” said Telemakos.

“Indeed we did.”

“So the kingdom is safely yours once again,” I said.

His smile evaporated.

“Their kinsmen have demanded retribution,” Telemakos said.

I knew what that meant. Blood feuds, dozens of them, all descending on Odysseus and his family at once.

“Among the slain was the son of Neoptolemos, King of Epeiros. So the kinsmen of the others have gathered together here in Epeiros, preparing to march to Ithaca, take it for themselves, and slay me in retribution.”

Neoptolemos was a name I had heard before: Olympias’ father, if I recalled correctly. But Olympias would not be born for a thousand years. Neoptolemos must be a ceremonial name carried by all the kings of Epeiros.

Unless—

“But we have marched here to Epeiros’ walls,” said Telemakos, “and laid siege to their city. With all of them bottled up inside the city walls.”

The youth seemed rather proud that they had carried the war to their enemies, rather than waiting for them to strike Ithaca.

Odysseus seemed less enthusiastic. “It is a fruitless siege. They refuse to come out and do battle and we lack the strength to storm the city.”

I remembered how long it had taken to capture Troy.

In a rare show of impatience, Odysseus banged the table with his fist hard enough to make the slaves cower. “I want to be home! I want to enjoy my last years with my wife, and leave a peaceful kingdom for my son. Instead the gods send me this.”

How like Philip he sounded. Except that Odysseus seemed to love his wife and trust his son fully.

“I wish there were something I could do,” I said to them. “Some way I could help.”

The ghost of a crafty smile played across Odysseus’ lips. “Perhaps there is, Orion. Perhaps there is.”

That night I slept outside Odysseus’ tent. Telemakos, seeing that I had nothing except the clothes on my back and the crude spear I had fashioned, ordered his slaves to bring me a cloak and armor and proper weapons.

Strangely, Odysseus interfered. “A cloak only,” he said. “That will be enough for Orion for this night. And tomorrow.”

I did not object. Obviously he had some scheme in mind. Among the Achaians besieging Troy, Odysseus had been the wisest of the commanders. He could fight as well as any man, but he could also think and plan ahead—something that Agamemnon and Achilles and the others seldom did.

Morning broke and Odysseus summoned his rag-tag army before the main gate of Epeiros. Standing in his bronze armor, bareheaded, he raised his spear to the cloud-dotted sky and shouted in a voice powerful enough to crack the heavens:

“Men of Epeiros! Kinsmen of the dogs I slew in my home in Ithaca! Come out from behind your walls and fight! Don’t be cowards. You mean to make war upon me because I defended my wife and my honor. Here I am! Come and make your war this morning. It is a good day to fight.”

I saw dozens of heads rise up along the wall’s parapet, many of them helmeted in shining bronze. But no one replied to Odysseus.

He raised his voice again to them. “Are you afraid to die? What difference does it make if I kill you here or before the walls of Ithaca? You have declared blood feud against me and my family, haven’t you? Well here is your chance to settle the matter once and for all. Come out and fight!”

“Go away,” a man’s deep voice shouted back. “We’ll fight you when we’re ready. Our kinsmen are back at their cities raising thousands of men to come to our aid. When you see their dust on the road as they march here your blood will turn to water and you’ll piss yourself with fear.”