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

‘But that’s precisely what I want to hear about,’ she replied. ‘Particularly the war in Troy and my husband’s death. Were you there?’

Eperitus nodded and, reluctantly at first, told her what he had witnessed on the day Achilles had died. It would have been a short account – he had none of Odysseus’s ability to embellish a story – if Deidameia had not teased out every important detail from him. She showed little emotion as the full truth was laid before her, and when the story was done insisted on hearing more about Achilles’s achievements before his death. Eventually, after Eperitus’s clumsy retelling was done, she turned to the real reason she had summoned him.

‘Do you think Neoptolemus will be a replacement for Achilles?’ she asked. ‘Do Odysseus and Diomedes really believe that?’

‘We do. He has his father’s blood in him, after all.’

‘But he is not Achilles. You will know that when you see him tonight. He can’t do the things his father failed to do! So why are you here? Why leave the war in Troy for the sake of one man?’

Eperitus stood.

‘It’s not my place to say, my lady. Odysseus and Diomedes were charged with this mission, not me. If you had hoped to trick me –’

‘Of course not,’ she said, her tone conciliatory. She took him by the elbow and encouraged him to retake his seat. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Eperitus. I’m just a mother worried for her son. You must have children of your own.’

‘A daughter.’

‘Then don’t you miss her?’

‘She died before the war.’

Deidameia faced him and laid her hand on his forearm. Her eyes were full of compassion.

‘How old was she?’

‘She was nine. The truth is I hardly knew her. I slept with her mother in Sparta ten years before, but I didn’t learn she’d given birth to my daughter until a short while before she died.’

‘And how did she die?’

Deidameia’s voice was soft now. Eperitus looked down at her slim, long-fingered hand on his arm, felt the hotness of her skin against his, and wondered whether he should answer. Whether he could answer. Then he felt the old anger rising as he thought of his daughter’s murder and his own inability to save her.

‘She was sacrificed to appease the gods. King Agamemnon murdered her so that his fleet could sail in safety to Ilium.’

Deidameia’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

‘But that was his own daughter, Iphigenia, born of Clytaemnestra. Everyone knows the story.’

‘They know some, but not all. Clytaemnestra was my lover in Sparta and Iphigenia was my daughter. I tried to stop Agamemnon, but –’ He stood again and stepped away from the bench. ‘I must go. Odysseus will be wondering where I am.’

‘Tell me why they want my son, Eperitus. As a father yourself –’

‘I sympathise with you, Deidameia, I do, but that’s for Odysseus to say, not me. He’ll tell you why we’re here tonight. And as for your son, he’s not a boy any more; he’s old enough to be a warrior now, like his father before him. And part of him will want to follow Achilles. You say you have faith in him, that you know him, but you don’t. How can a woman really know what’s in a man’s heart? A man lives under the shadow of his father, for good or bad, and at some point he wants to be free of it and live his own life. How Neoptolemus does that is up to him, not you.’

He held her gaze for a moment, then turned and left.

The sun had set and the first stars were beginning to prick the deep blue of the evening sky outside when torch-bearing slaves came to their quarters with a summons to the promised feast. Without armour or weapons, Odysseus, Diomedes and Eperitus followed the slaves through the palace to the copper gates, where they were awaited by Polites, Eurybates and Omeros who had come on Odysseus’s orders. Polites held a great wooden chest on his shoulder, making light of the burden, while Eurybates wore Achilles’s shield on his arm, its splendour hidden behind a covering of sail cloth. Omeros was struggling to even hold the huge ash spear that Achilles had wielded with such devastation in battle. At first the gate guards were reluctant to let them carry weapons into the palace, but agreed when Odysseus said they were gifts for Neoptolemus and suggested a detail of warriors could accompany them to the great hall.

‘Wait here,’ Odysseus told his men as they reached the tall double doors. ‘I’ll send for you when I need the gifts, but do not enter before then – whatever you may hear from inside. Do you understand?’

The muffled sound of voices and music became suddenly loud and clear as the guards threw open the doors and ushered them in. The hall was filled with the nobility of Scyros, men of all ages who had never been called to the fields of Ilium. They were seated at long tables, piled high with food and drink that was constantly being replenished by lines of slaves. These seemed to move in eddying currents through the crowded chamber, balancing platters of bread and meat on their heads, or pouring wine into the empty kraters that were waved before their faces. The hearth was ablaze with fresh logs and pumped a twisting pillar of sparks and smoke up to the ceiling. As the newcomers were led to a vacant table there was a flicker of interest from the other guests in the hall, but it passed quickly.

Odysseus glanced up see Lycomedes watching them closely from his throne. Deidameia was seated next to her father, dressed now in a sable chiton with her hair covered in black cloth. Beside her was a young girl of perhaps thirteen or fourteen. Her youthful beauty shone out like a beacon in the shadow-filled chamber, sensualised by her bright red lips and painted eyes. Deidameia leaned across to speak in her ear and the girl looked over at the battle-hardened men who had just entered the great hall.

‘I’m guessing that’s Phaedra, the girl Neoptolemus will marry tomorrow,’ Odysseus said as they sat at the benches.

Eperitus nodded. ‘And that must be Neoptolemus.’

A youth stood by the hearth, holding his krater at arms length and pouring a libation into the flames. Odysseus had not noticed him before among the movement and noise of the hall, but now that he saw the figure beyond the heat haze of the fire he could not take his eyes off him. Neoptolemus was tall and tautly muscled, and though he had short, light brown hair and was clean-shaven – Achilles had been blond with long hair and a beard – the likeness to his father was striking. It was as if the warrior who had killed Hector, Penthesilea, Memnon and countless others on the Trojan plains had been brought back from the dead. Then Neoptolemus’s eyes met his and the illusion was broken. Whereas Achilles’s perfect and terrifying anger was equalled by his capacity for friendship, hospitality, pride, honour and love, his son’s gaze was filled only with a cold and fearsome hostility, untainted by the oceanic passions that had made his father so humanly fallible.

Odysseus took a krater of wine from the hand of a passing slave and walked to the hearth, pouring a libation to the gods. Neoptolemus continued to stare at him and Odysseus returned his gaze for several moments – long enough to show the young prince he was not afraid of him – before raising the krater to his lips and bowing his eyes to the dark liquid. Diomedes and Eperitus joined him, slopping dashes of wine into the flames as they watched Neoptolemus return to a vacant chair beside Lycomedes. He looked at Phaedra and gave her a nodding smile, then at his mother, to whom he bowed his head with reverent formality.

‘He has the eyes of a born killer,’ Diomedes commented. ‘Very like his father, and yet lacking something. That lust for glory, perhaps?’