Valerio Manfredi: Odysseus: The Return

Troy was still burning.

A huge storm of fire raged. Blazing shafts plunged from the heavens with a deafening roar. The shades of fallen warriors still screamed their outrage amidst the smoke and flames; restless, anguished souls, teeming now at the gates of Hades. Troy would burn for days and nights, until she had turned to ash.

The glare of the fires guided us back.

Two men from each ship swam to shore, struggling against the strong current. They anchored the vessels to land by tying them to the solid oak stakes they drove into the ground. I ordered them all to wait aboard as I set off towards the city; no one was to go ashore for any reason. I still wonder why I didn’t stay with my men that night, why I went back to the scene of deceit and slaughter. I don’t have an answer.

I could see, from on high, the ships of Agamemnon and the other kings who had chosen to remain. They were anchored at the sterns, their prows facing seaward — so they were on their way as well. Perhaps they’d understood that there were no sacrifices or hecatombs that could make amends for the horrors we’d committed. All that innocent blood spilled.

I found the road that led to the city, passed between the scorched jambs of the Skaian Gate that we’d believed to be impregnable, walked up towards the citadel. I arrived just in time to witness the unimaginable: the horse I myself had built was collapsing, at that very instant, devoured by the fire. It had taken the flames this long to envelope the horse, so tall it had once towered over the city and the palace. It crashed to the earth in a vortex of sparks and white smoke. Its head was last to dissolve in the blaze.

I heard, or thought I heard, the echoing shrieks of those the fire had consumed. They were gone, but their dried blood still clogged the cracks in the road. I continued to ascend, until I reached the vast porticoed courtyard where the sanctuary of my goddess still rose. The roof had caved in, and the blackened pillars now stood alone like silent guards.

I went in.

The sanctuary was empty. The pedestal where the glittering statue of Pallas Athena had stood was empty. The powerful idol had vanished. Who had taken it? Who would have dared to do such a thing?

The Achaians, perhaps?

I, myself?

Had my mind erased this completely? Is this what had dragged me back inside the walls of sacred Troy? Questions without meaning and without answers that could not stop me from wandering like a spectre among the charred ruins. The rain sizzled and hissed as it met the flames that still burned with accursed energy. In the end, exhausted, I made my way back down to the battlefield. There was a strange, unreal light in the air, a luminescent vapour that transformed the objects around me, making everything unrecognizable. I found myself suddenly at the wild fig tree, without realizing how I’d got there. The familiar grey trunk, the green leaves, the bark so often wounded. I leaned against it and felt the scars of the immortal tree at my back, the only living thing remaining in the devastated field. I slumped, bone-weary, and fell asleep.

It was the moon that woke me. It led me back to the promontory, lighting my path and then the high yards and sleek flanks of my ships. At dawn, a strong land wind scattered the clouds and carried the smoke out to sea, clearing the sky above us and leaving it luminous. We cast off the moorings then, pushed the ships out and raised the sails. The wind steered us towards the coast of Thrace.

I knew those lands well. I’d gone there often during the long war to buy the wine that had so often consoled us during our many sufferings and gladdened our banquets. A strong, sweet wine that we diluted with water so it would last longer. It certainly wasn’t a job that required a king. Any of the merchants who had pitched their tents outside our camp could have seen to it, but it was a job that I liked. It made me feel alive again. I would walk through the fields, watch as the wine was poured out, have a taste, haggle over the price. Sometimes I would be invited to lunch, and I could linger at the table with the vine-dressers. It felt like I was home again, in a way.

Now we were at sea, finally, and we were never going to turn back.

How did I feel. . tears fell from my eyes. I looked back and remembered my comrades, the friends I had lost, all those who would not be returning with us. And I looked forward, counting the days that separated us from our island home. It didn’t seem real. I was starting to think again like a man who inhabits his own house, grows his own crops, tends his own flocks. I let myself imagine joyful events: embracing my parents, the little son who had never known me. . Penelope, who I had so keenly desired on all those long sleepless nights. . We would lie together in the bed I had built and after we’d made love I would gaze at the beams over my head, breathe in the scent of the olive trunk, the scent of my wife. We would have so many things to tell each other, under the covers that my mother had embroidered. . And Argus? Was Argus still alive?

I thought of painful things as well: facing the families of my fallen comrades, listening to their inconsolable weeping, offering them the share of the booty that was their right in exchange for a son’s life. The news of our endeavour would have travelled from mouth to mouth, from village to village, from island to island and I would be making my return as the absolute victor, the destroyer of cities, the man with the mind who had plotted unimaginable stratagems. The trophies of my victory would be hung from the walls of my palace: embossed shields, bronze panoplies, baldrics of silver mail with gold and amber buckles that would astonish my father and all the visitors who came to call. . But I couldn’t think any further than that. So many years of ruin and grief had taught me that you can’t make plans. The future is inscrutable; the gods are often envious of our happiness and enjoy watching us suffer. Only my goddess loved me, of this I was certain, but not even she could bend destiny.

Then we sighted land and in no time I was thinking like a warrior and predator again. It was like a disease, lurking deep inside me; after all, I’d done nothing else for ten years. I found myself pondering the thought that all the booty I carried with me was surely not a sufficient token of my great glory. My people would be expecting much more of me.

From the sea we could see a city up on a hill and its inhabitants could probably see us. It was defended by a wooden palisade and had gates of stone.

‘Let’s seize it!’ shouted my men.

They were like me. They knew they would be putting themselves in danger but they didn’t care. Perhaps they were already craving carnage, terror, violence. After all, this was the land of the Ciconians; they were Thracians and allies of Priam. It was only right for us to attack them. I ordered my comrades to take up arms and we put ashore. The men of the city must have been far off, in the fields or at pasture with their flocks. No warriors came out to challenge us. It wasn’t until we had crashed through the main gate using the mast from one of our ships that we saw a single living soul. A hasty assembly of about a hundred men stood against us. We easily overcame them and poured into the city.

Before long, the city of Ismarus was put to plunder and its most beautiful women were rounded up and dragged off. I walked into one of the richest houses and found a man who appeared to be terrified. He fell to his knees and begged me not to kill him. He wore the headdress of a priest and I spared him. In exchange he gave me a big skin full of wine, the best he had. The same fine wine that I had brought back to the battlefield so often for the banquets of the princes and kings.