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

Apheidas’s brow furrowed.

‘What is this hope, my lord?’

‘Not what, but who,’ Priam replied. He lay the Vine carefully back down on the purple cloth and looked about at the others. ‘I mean King Eurypylus of Mysia.’

‘Your grandson?’ Antenor queried. ‘He’ll never go against his mother’s wishes, and Astyoche refuses to even recognise you as her father.’

‘Our parting was bitter,’ Priam agreed, nodding. ‘Astyoche was a female Hector – headstrong and resolute. When I forbade her to marry Telephus, Heracles’s son, she slipped away at night and rode to his palace, where she married him. We haven’t spoken since. And yet there was one thing she coveted above all else, but was never able to make her own. The Golden Vine.’

Apheidas snorted his disgust.

‘Do you mean you’re going to exchange the Vine for the help of a king who can’t do anything without his mother’s permission? What possible use could a man like that be on a battlefield?’

Priam stared at him, piqued that a mere captain should dare to question the judgement of a king.

‘Only a fool would dismiss Eurypylus,’ he said. ‘His grandfather is Heracles, from whom he has inherited terrifying strength, or so it’s said. What’s more, he leads an army many thousands strong, all of whom would be fresh to the fight – not tired of war like we who’ve been battling for the past ten years. If the Mysians can be persuaded to help us while the Greeks are still recovering from their recent losses, we might be able to throw them back into the sea once and for all.’

‘But would Eurypylus come to our aid, just because you placate Astyoche with the last great treasure of our city?’ Deiphobus asked. ‘Wouldn’t he want something for himself? He’s a king, after all.’

‘Rumour has it Astyoche is her son’s lover,’ Priam said, ‘and knowing how manipulative she used to be, I can fully believe it. If I offer her the Vine, she will make sure he comes. Though you’re right, Eurypylus should have something too. I will offer him Cassandra in marriage.’

Priam called for wine, while the others exchanged questioning looks. As servants appeared and refilled their cups, the king leaned across the table and replaced the cloth over the Golden Vine. At his signal, four guards moved out from the shadows and placed the priceless treasure into a wooden casket, before turning and carrying it from the great hall.

‘It’s late,’ Priam said, draining the last of his cup. He turned to his herald.

‘Idaeus, tomorrow you will begin preparations to go to Mysia. Antenor will go with you. Deiphobus, tell your sister she’s going to be married. That’s if she doesn’t already know,’ he added with a small laugh. ‘And as for the king, I need my bed. Good night.’

Eperitus sat on one of the benches, wet, windswept and dejected as he huddled between Eurybates on his right and the bulk of Polites on his left. Polites acted like a wall that protected him from the worst of the storm, but the rain and the waves that broke over the low sides of the ship had already soaked him to the skin, while the howling wind that burrowed through the gaps in his clothing ensured his discomfort was complete. And, unlike the Argive sailors who were busy battling the squall under the shouted directions of Sthenelaus and Diomedes, Eperitus had nothing to take his mind off the misery of his situation. All he could do was stare at Zacynthos to the north-west, a dark lump that was almost lost between the jagged seas below, the grey, oppressive clouds above and the thick veil of rain in-between. As he stared at the sparsely populated, southernmost extremity of Odysseus’s kingdom, he thought back longingly to the days they had spent on the voyage from Troy, sailing on sun-blessed oceans from one headland to the next as they tracked the Asian seaboard south to Icaria, and then hopping from island to island across the Cyclades. The weather had been kind to them, too, as they crossed the Cretan Sea from Melos to Malia – the south-eastern corner of the Peloponnese – and followed the coast round, past the mouth of the River Eurotas to the tip of the Taygetus Mountains at the cape of Taenarus. By then his legs had gotten quite used to the pleasant movements of the waves beneath the hull of the galley, and the only thing that had unsettled him as they made their way up the south-west coast of the Peloponnese – a route he vaguely remembered from ten years earlier when the Ithacan fleet had sailed to war, and from ten years before that when he and Odysseus had journeyed back from Sparta after the marriage of Helen and Menelaus – had been the ramshackle and almost deserted appearance of the harbours and fishing villages they had passed. There had been no women or children to wave at them as they went by, or groups of old sailors discussing the trim of the galley or the way she was handled. Only the cluster of small fishing boats in each harbour, and the sense they were being watched by unseen eyes, suggested the villages were inhabited at all.

Then, as they pulled up the stone anchors that morning, the weather had changed. With a speed that surprised Eperitus, the wind picked up and the skies grew dark with clouds that rolled down from the heavens to press upon the rising turmoil of the sea. The easy motion of the waves that Eperitus’s legs had learned to accommodate in the earlier part of the voyage now turned violent, pitching him about the deck and turning his stomach so that he was sick over Omeros’s sandals. Omeros, green-faced and almost too ill to notice, returned the compliment. Sthenelaus’s voice fought against the wind, ordering the crew to angle the sail so that the ship was driven diagonally across the waves. A moment later the spar was lowered halfway down the mast to reduce the pressure and steady the roll of the galley. That was as much as they could do in the face of the gale, but as the ship drifted in relative safety a new cry went up. Land had been spotted to the north.

Eperitus, who had remained astern with Omeros, was now joined by Polites and Eurybates.

‘It’s Zacynthos,’ Polites announced, a hint of excitement in his normally deep, slow voice. ‘Come on.’

He hoisted Eperitus up by his arm and dragged him to the prow, followed by Eurybates and Omeros. Odysseus was already there, not even noticing his countrymen as he grasped the bow rail and squinted hard against the squall. They joined him in silence, staring through the sheet-rain at the almost imperceptible horizon rolling from left to right before them. Eperitus saw the line of the Peloponnesian coast on the starboard side of the galley, which Sthenelaus kept them in sight of at all times, but despite his sharp vision he was unable to see the new land that had been spotted. Eventually he caught a brief glimpse of something black and indistinct, but the act of focussing on a static point in a world of constant motion forced his stomach to contract in protest. He vomited again, this time managing to reach the side of the ship before the liquid spilled from his lips, then staggered back to suffer in solitude on the benches. One by one the others sat down until only Odysseus remained, lost in his own thoughts and memories as he stared at the southernmost point of the kingdom he had not seen for ten years.

Slowly, Zacynthos grew from a small blot to something that was visibly a large, if still distant, island. The gale was already dying away and the galley would soon head towards the mainland, to seek the mouth of the River Alpheius. There they would make their final landfall of the voyage and head inland to find Pisa, and hopefully the tomb of Pelops. Knowing this, Eperitus reluctantly extracted himself from the shelter afforded by Polites and Eurybates, and staggered up the middle of the ship to join the lone figure of Odysseus at the prow. Despite his nausea, which was exaggerated by his supernaturally enhanced senses, Eperitus fought down the desire to vomit again.