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

‘It’s ten.’

‘ Ten !’ Philoctetes reeled back, bearing his blackened teeth in a snarl and slapping repeatedly at the boulder with the flat of his hand. ‘Ten years alone, with nothing but seagulls and his hatred of the Greeks to keep him company! In the name of Heracles, can it have been so long?’

‘Be glad it doesn’t have to be any longer,’ Diomedes said, a little impatiently. ‘What’s more, Agamemnon realises you were wronged when we left you here and doesn’t expect you to return to the army without compensation. He offers seven copper tripods and cauldrons to go with them, never touched by fire, along with ten ingots of gold and three slave women trained in all the household arts. These are fine gifts, Philoctetes, and you will bring yourself great honour by accepting them.’

Philoctetes was half lost in a sheet of fog that had rolled down from the cliff tops above, but his husky voice was clearly audible in the damp air.

‘Philoctetes always liked you, Diomedes. You were one of the few kings who had a shred of decency in them. Yet you don’t have Odysseus’s powers of persuasion, or that honeyed voice of his; indeed, you make Agamemnon’s gifts sound as exciting as roast seagull. The King of Men should have sent Odysseus instead; Philoctetes could have enjoyed the skill of his arguments, and then had the satisfaction of shooting him dead in payment for marooning him here! Now go back in your ship and tell Agamemnon to keep his offer. Philoctetes doesn’t need cauldrons or gold – not here – and any “honour” attached to them would be more than compensated for by the shame of serving an army that betrayed him!’

‘Then forget the gifts,’ Diomedes snapped, jabbing his finger at the mist-shrouded figure above. ‘Forget Agamemnon, forget the army, forget the oath we took to protect Helen. If you’re so twisted with hatred of your own countrymen –’

‘ Curse all Greeks !’

‘Then if you hate us so much, do it for the love of the gods – or fear of them, if that’s easier. Do you think Agamemnon or any of us’d give a damn about your bow and arrows, whatever their powers are claimed to be? If the spears of Achilles, Ajax and a host of others haven’t defeated Troy in ten years, what difference will your weapons make? None that I can see! The only reason we came here was because Calchas, priest of Apollo, had a vision that Troy will not fall without you. Until the bow and arrows of Heracles are brought to Ilium, every drop of Greek blood will have been spilled in vain. So if you won’t return for our sakes, then do it out of respect for the gods. Or do it for yourself. Isn’t it payment enough that men will say the walls of Troy only succumbed to the arrows of Philoctetes? That’s more than thousands of those who have already died can claim, and many of them were greater men than you are.’

There was a long silence, during which Philoctetes was lost to sight behind the drifting mist. When it cleared they saw he had descended a little and was sitting on a smooth rock with his bow and arrows at his side. A thick, twisted branch that he used as a crutch was leaning against his inner thigh.

‘Perhaps you’re not as clumsy with words as Philoctetes thought, Diomedes,’ he said. ‘At least, not when you‘re touched with a little passion. And the will of the gods – and the promise of everlasting glory – are not easy things to deny, especially when the alternative is to remain here, forgotten by the civilised world and left to feast on stringy gull’s meat and seaweed. What Philoctetes wouldn’t do for a taste of wine, or even the feel of bread in his mouth again! Not to mention a little conversation and the company of his fellow men.’

He paused and Eperitus sensed the hesitation in Philoctetes’s tone.

‘Go on,’ Diomedes said, cautiously.

‘And yet you ask too much. Can you even begin to understand what it’s like to spend – what did you say it was – to spend ten years alone? To be cursed by the gods and abandoned by your comrades, nursing a desire for vengeance and longing for human companionship, only to be offered salvation by the very men whose downfall you’ve been praying for all that time. Yes, he wanted you to return and plead for his help, but only so he could have the satisfaction of telling you to go to the halls of Hades. But now you’ve come, it’s not how he’d imagined it. He’s not even sure whether this isn’t some sort of trick, the kind of thing Odysseus would dream up; or whether, if he went with you to Ilium, Philoctetes would spend his arrows on the Trojans or turn them on the Greeks. He needs time, Diomedes.’

‘Zeus’s beard, haven’t you had enough time?’ demanded a new voice.

Eurylochus pulled back his hood and turned to Diomedes.

‘He’s never going to come with us, Diomedes. He’s as stubborn as a mule and twice as stupid, not to mention driven out of his senses. If you’d let Odysseus do the talking we’d have been back at the galley by now, sailing for Ilium with this twisted maggot of a man hankering to get into battle and end the war.’

‘Odysseus? Odysseus is here?’ Philoctetes said, leaning down over the boulder and staring at the piglike features of Eurylochus. Eurylochus looked down at his feet, realising his slip, and Philoctetes turned his fierce eyes on the hooded figures behind him. ‘Which one of you is Odysseus? Declare yourself or Philoctetes’ll shoot all three of you where you stand!’

‘You’re a damned fool, Eurylochus,’ Odysseus snarled, removing his hood and walking out in front of the others. ‘Get from my sight before I cut out your tongue and feed it to the seagulls!’

Eurylochus could not meet Odysseus’s angry gaze and retreated into the mist. As he slipped away, a gurgle of cold laughter spilled down from the rocks above them.

‘He should have known you’d be here,’ Philoctetes crowed, smiling with triumphant hatred. ‘He should have guessed Agamemnon wouldn’t send Diomedes for a task like this. Only the great deceiver – Odysseus himself – would do. Ha, ha! Philoctetes has prayed for this chance for so long. And now, Odysseus, your treacherous ways have finally caught up with you!’

He drew back his bow and took aim.

Chapter Three

H ERACLES

Eperitus felt his heart race. If he had been allowed to bring his spear he could have launched it at the skeletal, wild-haired wretch perched among the boulders above them, but as Philoctetes drew back the feathered arrow so that its poisonous head rested against the top of his left fist there was not even enough time to throw himself in front of his king. Then, in the split moment before Philoctetes released the bowstring, Odysseus raised his hand.

‘Stop!’ he commanded.

His voice had such power and authority that Philoctetes was compelled to retain his pinch-hold on the arrow and lower his bow a little. He looked down the shaft at the man he had spent ten years hating – hating him still, but powerless for an instant to bring about his destruction.

‘Philoctetes, I do not deny your right to kill me,’ Odysseus began. ‘Indeed, what man who had suffered as you have suffered would not want to kill the one he blamed for his misfortunes. If you send my spirit down to Hades then I would not begrudge you your vengeance, even though your haste will have deprived Penelope of a husband and Telemachus a father. You, after all, are the victim, the man who through no fault of his own was betrayed and abandoned to die on this forbidding rock.’

He swept his hand in a half-circle, looking up at the churning walls of mist and the dark mass of the cliff faces beyond them.

‘In truth, I’m amazed you were able to survive this long in such a place. There are few, even among the greatest warriors of Greece, who could have kept themselves alive amid this desolation.’