Glyn Iliffe - The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘Now you’re beginning to sound like a healer,’ Podaleirius said with a smile.

‘Are you ready?’ Odysseus asked.

He looked Philoctetes up and down, barely able to believe the change in him. The wild, half-mad wretch they had found on Lemnos looked almost human again as they stood waiting outside Agamemnon’s palatial tent. After a night of fitful dreams in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo, he had woken at dawn refreshed and free from his pain. More miraculous still, when Podaleirius had changed his dressing the wound was clean and already beginning to heal – a result that Podaleirius admitted was beyond even his skill and could only be attributed to the gods. The rest of the day had been spent at the temple, awaiting the summons to the Council of Kings. While Eperitus had remained silent and reflective, Odysseus had put the time to good use. He cut Philoctetes’s hair and trimmed his beard, and, after he had bathed, gave him fine new clothes. By the time the messenger from Agamemnon arrived, he was recognisable as the man who had set out with them from Aulis ten years before. The only differences were his wasted limbs and painfully thin body, and the stick that he was forced to lean on as his foot recovered. He also seemed to have put aside his animosity toward Odysseus, accepting the Ithacan’s help without grudge and even asking him to carry his sacred bow and arrows – rolled up in a cloth – as they set off for the Council. Odysseus felt no qualms, though, that the change had come about because he had tricked Philoctetes into believing Heracles had ordered him to go to Ilium. If it brought the defeat of Troy closer, it was justified.

‘I’m ready,’ Philoctetes replied.

‘Then let’s enter,’ said Eperitus with a nod to the guards, who pulled aside the entrance to Agamemnon’s tent and ushered them in.

Though it was late in the evening, the summer sun had not yet disappeared beyond the edge of the world and its distant fire gave the flaxen walls and ceiling of the great pavilion a pink tinge. The air inside was warm and stuffy from the heat of the day, the flames of the hearth and the press of bodies that had crammed in to witness the return of the man they had left for dead. The smell of fresh sweat mingled with the sweet aroma of roast meat, spiced wine and the platters of still-warm bread that were laid out on the long tables around the hearth. Behind them, crowded thigh to thigh on the low benches, the kings, princes and commanders of the Greek army fell suddenly silent and stared at Philoctetes.

The archer shuffled forward, leaning heavily on his crutch.

‘You have beef?’ he asked, looking at the overlapping platters, stacked like so many pebbles on a beach. ‘And red wine?’

‘We have every meat you could desire, Philoctetes,’ answered a voice from the hushed assembly. ‘Beef, mutton, goat, ham, fish … whatever you want. And as much wine as you can drink, so long as you keep a clear head. Now, come sit before us and eat your fill. We will talk when you are ready.’

Agamemnon, dressed in his customary white tunic, blood-red cloak and the ornate breastplate King Cinyras had given to him, snapped his fingers and a swarm of slaves rushed out from the shadows to attend to the Malian prince and his companions. Within moments, Philoctetes, Odysseus and Eperitus were seated on a bench before the circular hearth, behind a long table on which the slaves set down dish after dish and basket after basket of the richest foods imaginable. Kraters of wine were pushed before them and Eperitus was forced to place a warning hand on Philoctetes’s wrist as he drained his vessel and raised it for more. Meanwhile, Odysseus looked at the bearded faces beyond the heat haze of the flames, all of them watching keenly as the skeletal phantom of the man they had abandoned helped himself to handfuls of food from every platter in reach. There was fascination and not a little revulsion in their eyes, and also guilt. Though every one of these men had committed acts that were heinous even by the savage standards of warfare, something about the abandonment of a comrade-in-arms had never left them, as if they knew the wrath of the gods had been upon them ever since their betrayal. Agamemnon, in particular, regarded Philoctetes with absorption, resting his chin on his knuckles and fixing his cold blue eyes on the man in whose hands the future of the war lay. On his left sat Nestor, the old king of Pylos who acted as Agamemnon’s military adviser. His grey hair and beard had turned almost white since the death of Antilochus – his favourite son – only a few weeks before, and his eyes were now deep wells of grief that had forgotten the joy of life. To Agamemnon’s right was his brother, Menelaus, his red hair thinning on top and his plaited beard spread like a net across his broad chest. Though embittered by the loss of his wife to Paris, his face was kinder than his older sibling’s and he watched Philoctetes with nothing but pity.

Eventually, Philoctetes leaned back, lay his hands across the bulge of his belly, and let out a rolling belch. He smacked his lips together and wiped his greasy beard on the sleeve of his tunic.

‘Beats seagull,’ he said, then repeated his appreciation with another belch.

‘Then if you’re ready, we’ll begin,’ Agamemnon said. ‘You know why we sent Odysseus and Diomedes to bring you back to the army, of course – the prophecy that the gates of Troy will not fall without the weapons of Heracles. You have them with you?’

Philoctetes nodded and there was an almost palpable stilling of breath as Odysseus handed him the long bundle of cloth. Philoctetes whipped off the covering to reveal the tall, perfectly crafted bow and its leather quiver, tightly packed with black-feathered arrows. A murmur passed among the assembly, but was quickly stilled by Agamemnon’s raised hand.

‘Good. But before we speak more of the prophecy, we must first look back ten years to your wounding and our stranding you on Lemnos. You have to understand, Philoctetes, that for our part it was not personal. It may have been for Achilles, who was jealous that you beat him in the race from Aulis – and he was a hard man to defy when he was determined about something – but the rest of us can only blame our weakness. The stench of your wound and the constant wailing were enough to drive any man insane, even hardened warriors like us, and we succumbed to our moral flaws. That it was the will of the gods, too, shown by the fact Podaleirius healed you last night but could not a decade ago, does not lessen our guilt. We abandoned you to terrible deprivation and suffering and for that we are sorry.’

Grunts of approval met the apology, but Philoctetes had been reminded of the wrongs that were done to him and stared sullenly about at the circle of faces, bathed in the orange glow of the fire.

‘A gracious confession of your guilt, and one which I will accept,’ he grunted. ‘Though only because my lord Heracles personally ordered me to put aside my anger and come to Troy. It’s for his glory and mine that I am here, so let us get to the crux: why am I here, exactly? These arrows never miss and they kill every living thing they pierce, but they cannot knock down walls or shatter gates from their hinges. So what do you want from them?’

‘This has nothing to do with what Agamemnon wants,’ spoke a voice from the mouth of the tent’s entrance. ‘Indeed, the King of Men knows only a portion of what the gods have shown to me. And that is why he has summoned me here now – to speak the rest of the prophecy.’

A stooped figure, cloaked and hooded, moved in a shuffling hop to stand between the hearth and Agamemnon’s golden throne. One pale hand dangled limply from the opening in his cloak, beneath which could be seen a white dash of his priest’s robes. He raised his other hand to the lip of his hood and slipped it back, revealing a bald head and skull-like face. His dark eyes swept across the Council of Kings and came to rest on Philoctetes. One outcast facing another.