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

There was a murmur of surprise among the assembled elders, who leaned in towards each other to share whispered opinions. Deiphobus and Helenus both looked at Helen, who waited for the hushed discussions to cease before replying to the king.

‘My choice remains the same, my lord. I already have a husband, one who was chosen for me by my foster-father twenty years ago from among the best men of Greece. He is Menelaus, king of Sparta, and if you love your people you will send me back to him tonight.’

Priam slammed his palm down on the arm of his throne.

‘Menelaus may have been your husband in that barbaric land, but he is not here! And we have not fought for ten years just to give you back now. If you will not choose, Daughter, then I will choose for you. Deiphobus will be your husband. What’s more, you will be married this very night here in the great hall.’

‘No!’ Helen shouted. ‘I refuse!’

‘You’ll do as I command,’ Priam replied, sternly. ‘And as for you, Helenus, you will appear before the assembly tomorrow evening and you will tell us the oracle that was revealed to you.’

Helen turned and looked at the tall wooden doors at the back of the great hall. As the walls and ceiling of the vast chamber seemed to close in on her from the shadows, the doors presented her last hope of escape. But before she could think to run, Deiphobus seized her by the arm and shouted for Idaeus to fetch a priest. Helen struggled against her future husband’s grip, and though Deiphobus refused to meet her beautiful, accusing eyes, he held her firm.

Helenus shot his father an angry look, then turned and left with Apheidas at his shoulder.

Chapter Twelve

I N A PHEIDAS’S H OUSE

Eperitus looked over his shoulder at the five horsemen riding in file behind him. They were cloaked and hooded against the cold night air, and with only starlight to guide their mounts over the unpredictable terrain their progress was slow. Odysseus was nearest. He caught Eperitus’s glance and nodded.

‘Still here,’ he muttered, without enthusiasm.

Eperitus smiled in reply and turned his eyes back to the ground before his own horse’s hooves. The grass was thin and parched, dotted here and there with broken weapons and armour from the years of fighting that had taken place across it. Looking ahead, he could see the ridge line that marked the edge of the plateau – a deeper darkness rising up against the blue-black of the night sky. His supernatural eyesight could already pick out the tall ring of trees that formed the temple of Thymbrean Apollo, silhouetted against the stars as it stood on top of the ridge. The sight of it filled him with a sudden, heavy sorrow as he remembered his former squire, Arceisius, murdered in the temple by Apheidas – and all because Eperitus had been foolish enough to agree a meeting with his father. If he had trusted his long-standing hatred of Apheidas then Arceisius’s death would not be on his conscience. But he had believed the woman his father had sent to draw him into his trap, and if anything her betrayal had hurt him even more than the loss of his friend. He had shed bitter tears at the passing of Arceisius, tears of grief and regret, but after a decade of war he could understand death and had learned how to accept it. What he had not learned was how to accept treachery of the heart. He wanted to be angry with Astynome, but all he felt was sadness that she was gone. It would have been much easier to hate her for making him love her, when all along she had been living a lie, sent by Apheidas to trick him into betraying the Greeks. To hate was a familiar emotion, easy to live with. And yet, when he recalled her beautiful face framed by the dark mess of her hair, or the soft fragrance of her skin in his nostrils – so wonderful to his heightened senses – he knew he could never truly hate her. Naturally, he felt surges of bitterness and anger, as much at what he had lost as at what she had done; but then he would remember the feel of her long fingers running through his hair and the warmth of her lips against his, and he could not convince himself that she did not love him back.

‘Not far now,’ Odysseus said, catching Eperitus unawares as he rode up beside him.

The king had tipped back his hood and was squinting in the direction of the temple, doubtless nothing more than a black smudge atop the line of the ridge to his eyes.

‘I wonder whether we’ll find anything when we get there,’ Eperitus replied. ‘How are the others?’

‘Grumbling. Just as you’d expect.’

‘But why? After all, who wouldn’t want to spend the night tramping halfway across Ilium on the whim of a crazy priest?’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ Odysseus agreed. ‘However, if Calchas says the secret to Troy’s downfall will be found in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo tonight, then I don’t mind a short horse ride to see if it’s true. Besides, Agamemnon believes him and we do whatever Agamemnon commands, right?’

‘Right,’ Eperitus echoed indifferently. ‘Though I still say this is just another wild rabbit hunt. The problem is this whole war’s been like chasing rabbits – we stop up one hole and the Trojans escape out of another. And if you ask me Calchas doesn’t have the gift of prophecy, and if he ever did he doused the fire with too much wine years ago.’

‘He predicted the day of Achilles’s death, didn’t he?’ Odysseus replied. ‘Anyway, the rabbit holes can’t go on forever. One day – maybe this day – the gods will show us how to defeat Troy. And then we can go home.’

‘Did Troy fall the day Paris died, as Calchas predicted?’

‘That was another rabbit hole. And even if there are a hundred more holes to block, what choice do we have but to stop them up, stop them all up? This isn’t a little matter of personal fate that you and I can try to change. It’s a war, the biggest war the world has ever seen, and only the gods know how it will end. So if they tell Calchas that a new oracle, maybe the last oracle, will be given in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo tonight, then I’m going to be there. I’ll do whatever they tell us, Eperitus, if it means I’ll be able to hold Penelope in my arms again and see my little Telemachus.’

‘Not so little now,’ Eperitus said, slapping Odysseus on the shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s get to the temple and see what the gods have in mind.’

Odysseus turned and called to the others, then spurred his horse into a trot. Eperitus followed, hoping that Calchas’s latest vision would prove right and that they would soon find the final key to unlocking the gates of Troy.

Helenus stormed from the palace in a fit of rage, so incensed at Deiphobus’s victory that he did not know where to go or what to do with himself. He stomped across the courtyard, cursing his brother, Priam, Helen and all the gods in turn, before bawling at the guards to move aside as he almost ran down the slope to the lower tiers of the citadel. He yelled obscenities at the few soldiers patrolling the streets of Pergamos, then threw himself down a side alley and began beating his fists against a solid wooden door until his fury was exhausted and he slid down the cold stone doorpost to sit huddled in the dirt.

After a while a shadow fell across him. He looked up and saw Apheidas towering above him, a halo of stars crowning his dark head.

‘Come with me,’ he ordered.

He pulled Helenus to his feet and led him through the shadowy streets to a two-storeyed house adjacent to a small temple of Apollo beneath the outer walls. They crossed the modest courtyard to a low portico at the front of the house, which was supported by two simple columns. Apheidas pushed open the double doors and stepped directly into the main hall. The large chamber was in darkness but for the circular hearth that glowed at its centre. The four columns that surrounded the fire seemed to dance as the flickering light of its flames licked across them, warping in and out of the shadows as if moving to an unheard music. The walls of the main hall were almost lost in the dense shadows, but where the blush of the firelight reached them Helenus could see scenes of fierce battles painted on the white, smoke-stained plaster, in which lines of red-skinned warriors fought furiously for mastery over each other while the dead and dying lay piled beneath them.