Zachary Mason: The Lost Books of the Odyssey

A hoarse voice outside my tent whispered, “Odysseus, son of Laertes, son of Autolykos, an enemy begs a word.” I knew how easy it was to penetrate an enemy camp, having done so myself on many occasions, and I had given the Trojans much cause to hate me, so I stood and quietly drew my sword from its sheath. There was a genuine entreaty in his voice so I said, “Enter and have your word, enemy.”

An unarmed man let himself into my tent. He looked simultaneously comfortable, surprised and as though he were exerting himself not to look over his shoulder. He muttered a quiet prayer to Pallas Athena which was unusual in so far as she hates the Trojans and it was evident from my visitor’s narrow features and dark hair that he was of that race and city. He said, “I bring you a host-gift, Lord. A riddle — thus:

“One: When I was a boy visiting my grandfather, a man of great will but widely despised, he told me that his father’s father had counted both bears and men among his kin, this in the days before the red-hairs came. Though the blood is running thin, he said, the change still sometimes comes. He took me to a glade in a dark wood, drew a dagger with a wavy blade and cut deep into his wrists. I thought he was killing himself before my eyes and was going to run for help but fur erupted from his wounds and surged over his arms. His hands became padded paws with yellow half-moon claws and his irises turned mirror-green. The change stopped there and he soon reverted to the shape of a man,* exhausted and dissatisfied. He said that an uncle of his had had the true power but as a young man had gone off to live alone in the mountains and never come back, even to visit. And this is the reason, he added, that our family is disliked and respected, though these days few remember it.

“Two: I went hunting with my cousins when I was just shy of manhood. I fell behind the hunt and, distracted for a moment, did not hear the boar coming. I raised my spear and tried to thrust but my arms had lost their strength and it gored me. My cousins came bursting out of the wood and killed it but I had already fallen. It was my first wound and I wept openly, from pain and surprise and because I thought it had unmanned me, though as it turned out the gash didn’t extend beyond the top of my thigh.

“Three: There is an Olympian who loves me. The first time she spoke to me I was lost in the fog in the channel off of Zakynthos.

“Who am I?”

I replied, “You must be none other than that famous Odysseus, king of Ithaca, which is to say myself, for all these things happened to me, though I have never spoken of any of them. Did some god spy on me and whisper my secrets in your ear? Speak quickly, stranger.”

He had been watching my face intently. Closing his eyes, he said in a dead voice, “I am not making game of you and if any god did this it was without my knowledge or consent. For I too am Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and the night before last I fell asleep on that bed and the next morning woke up in a house in Troy, as you see me now, one of them. With a new wife and new children, who call me Iapetus.” He sat down heavily on my camp chair. “I feigned madness to buy time and hide my confusion. Tonight I slipped out of their city to see who was in my tent — it was strange to walk so carelessly past the Trojan guards. I must admit, you were the last person I expected to find here. I had thought it would be Iapetus the Trojan, or some stranger, and was ready to bargain, or kill him if he was going to disgrace my name.”

“Your approach to assassination has the virtue of originality.” I put my blade to his throat, ready for him to make a move. I have interrogated men at sword’s point before — often I have seen in their eyes a conviction that they, heroes, cannot die under such ignominious circumstances and a nascent intent to turn the tables on me. At such times I stick them in the big artery in the neck, the same stroke I used to kill pigs in the slaughter-house back home (it is a quiet death, life coursing gently away over a few minutes, pleasant compared to some). “Say I am in Ithaca and want to move my bed into the great hall. What then? Answer quickly, or I will send you back to Troy.” If the wind happens to blow your ashes that way, I added privately.

“The bed is built around an olive tree that emerges from the floor and passes out through the ceiling. I built it myself, starting work the day after my wedding,” he said, opening his eyes. “The second day I smashed my thumb with a hammer.”

“What was I thinking during the rain before last winter’s great sally on Troy?”

“I was watching the young men dress for battle and thinking of my own son Telemachus, who is nearly old enough for arms.”

I lowered my sword. The stranger looked miserable. Absently, he pulled out the water jar I kept under my bed and drank.

“What now?” he asked. “I see that my life is occupied. I made no plan for this. I cannot imagine a plan. In effect, I am exiled from my life. I wish I had not come.”

Self-pity wearies me. “Here is what now. I have my life and you have yours, though it is new to you. I will continue to fight for Agamemnon, the fool, whose vanity has filled a thousand men’s mouths with dust. You do what you want. You do not have my rights and are not bound by my oaths. Go and fight for Troy if you please — you know our counsels, could break our lines and bring the war to a quick conclusion,” I said, hope rising within me.

He shook his head. “I have killed too many Trojans to change sides. And though I could slaughter the Greeks and win fame I would be a traitor in my heart. No. And I cannot join the Greeks and be a nameless turncoat. I take my leave of Troy today. I will find some place where I can carve out a holding with my sword, some baron’s daughter to marry.”

I gave him a sack of food, another of gold, and arms and armor that I had stripped from a dead Trojan hero. He thanked me politely but seemed eager to go. I wished him well and told him that of the two of us I thought that he, freed from necessity, was the happier.

In due course, Troy fell and was sacked and the streets and the altars were strewn with dead. I had much honor and my pick of the spoils. Among other treasures I came away with a pretty slave-girl named Irina who had served in Iapetus’s house. I overheard her talking to the other girls about a time years ago when her then master had lost his mind. He had developed a strange accent and would not look at his wife or children. For several weeks he had forsworn his usual companions and pastimes and spent his days walking the battlements looking out at the Greeks. One day he had come home at first light carrying a sack of gold and some armor that had once belonged to Sarpedon, who had died in battle. That afternoon he had taken a few men and all of his gold and gone away for good. The strangest thing, Irina said, was just before he left when she had walked in on him cutting his own thigh with a dagger — he looked like a sculptor, getting the cut just so. I was preoccupied with preparations for the trip home and spared only a moment to pity the victims of so-called Iapetus’s stratagems.

After many years and travails I came to Ithaca’s shore, full of caution. All my men were drowned, my ships sunk and my treasures scattered on the sea floor. I was ready for any sort of treachery or decay but found the kingdom to all appearances in good order. The roads were mended, the peasants cheerful and many tall ships spread white sails in the harbor. I asked a sailor who was king here and he said that Odysseus was king in Ithaca, of course. I went to my family’s stronghold and introduced myself to the castellan as a wandering soldier and singer, looking for a place but not for too long — I had heard that Ithaca was prosperous and thought I would try my luck. I was courteously led into the great hall and there was Penelope, aged but still beautiful, and sitting next to her on my own seat was Iapetus the Trojan, bearded and sun-browned but still an alien, a foreigner, not a thing like me. Penelope’s hand rested on his. Telemachus sat in the wings, watching me with polite hauteur. The king, the so-called Odysseus, stood and under his short tunic I saw a white scar on his thigh exactly where the boar had gored me. He said, “Welcome, stranger. Though you introduce yourself with humble speech, your bearing impresses me — you are obviously a man of the best blood and have the air of a captain. Indeed, you seem as though you might have been a king once. Sadly, times are peaceful and there is not so much call for courage as when I was young — I need no more men-at-arms, and have harpers enough. However, you will not go away without a meal, a bag of gold and a suit of armor. Speak highly of me and of Ithaca as fortune bears you elsewhere. Sometimes my mind will go with you as I tend to my duty here — of the two of us I think that you, freed from necessity, are the happier.”