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

He raised the whip again and the beggar threw his hands up before his face.

‘Agamemnon ordered you and Odysseus to steal the Palladium from the temple of Athena,’ he said quickly and urgently, though in a low voice that would not be heard by the gate guards. ‘It’s the last of the oracles given by Helenus, for the defeat of Troy.’

Diomedes’s arm froze above his head and he stared at the beggar incredulously.

‘How could you possibly know that?’

The beggar dropped his hands away from his face and sat up, the sluggishness now gone from his movements. There was a smile on his lips and a roguish gleam in his eyes.

‘Because I am Odysseus, of course.’

Euryalus snorted derisively.

‘Such arrogance in one so low. Do you think we’ve never set eyes on Odysseus before? Do you really think we’re going to believe you’re the king of Ithaca?’

‘This man’s asking for more than a whipping now,’ Sthenelaus hissed, his voice an angry whisper.

The beggar did not take his eyes from Diomedes.

‘Then how would a simple beggar know that Trechos was the first Argive to be killed in Pelops’s tomb, his neck snapped by Pelops’s skeleton as he removed the lid of the sarcophagus?’

‘No-one could know that unless they were there,’ Diomedes answered. He scrutinised the beggar closely for a moment, then smiled and offered him his hand. ‘By all the gods, Odysseus, even your own mother wouldn’t recognise you in that state.’

Odysseus refused his friend’s hand and, retrieving his stick, pulled himself slowly and stiffly to his feet.

‘No Greek will ever be allowed through the Scaean Gate, but beggars come and go as they please. These rags are how I’ll get past the guards, and once I’m in I’ll lower a rope over the walls so you can join me, Diomedes.’

‘We’ll come, too,’ Euryalus declared.

Odysseus shook his head.

‘Agamemnon gave the task to Diomedes and myself. Besides, the more there are of us the more risk there is we’ll get caught.’ He turned his green eyes on Diomedes. ‘Hide yourself on the banks of the Simöeis until dark. I’ll wave a light from the walls – five times from left to right and back again – to show where I’ve tied the rope.’

‘What rope?’

Odysseus pulled back his robes and the folds of his baggy tunic to reveal the rope he had wound several times around his waist.

‘The walls on the far side of the city are lightly guarded,’ he continued, ‘and once you’re over them you’ll be inside Pergamos itself. We can find our way to the temple of Athena, steal the Palladium and be back out before dawn.’

‘Zeus’s beard, I think it might even work,’ Diomedes said with a grin, excited by the prospect of danger and the glory that came with it.

‘There’s one other thing I need to do while we’re there, though,’ Odysseus said. ‘I need to find out whether Eperitus was taken prisoner.’

The others looked at each other doubtfully.

‘He charged a company of Trojan cavalry alone,’ Sthenelaus said. ‘He’s dead.’

‘I spent the whole day searching for his body among the slain,’ Odysseus replied sternly. ‘He wasn’t there! And though some say they saw him shot by an archer as he rode at Apheidas, until I see his corpse and know his ghost has departed for the Underworld I won’t give up looking for him. He’s my friend, and he would have done the same for me.’

‘There’s a chance the Trojans took him,’ Diomedes said, though sceptically. ‘And if they did, they’ll accept a ransom for his release – or we can set him free when we take the city. But that won’t happen until we’ve stolen the Palladium. That has to be our priority, Odysseus, especially if we ever want to see our wives and families again.’

Odysseus did not need to be told the urgency of their mission.

‘Then we should go now. Take the whip and strike me again.’

Diomedes frowned.

‘We’ve given you enough rough treatment already, for which I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I provoked you to it, and it was necessary to make people believe my disguise; but the Trojans have eyes in the Greek camp and unless you want to arouse suspicion then you must continue to treat me as a vagabond and thief. Once you’ve made a display of driving me off you can return to your tent, but make sure you leave unnoticed again after sunset. And don’t forget to bring my sword with you.’

Diomedes hesitated for a moment, then raised the whip over his head and struck Odysseus on the shoulders. He yelped with pain and loudly accused the Argive king of being a whore’s son, earning himself another lash across the lower back. And so it continued until the beggar was out of sight and the guards at the gate had already forgotten his existence.

Chapter Twenty-seven

A N U LTIMATUM

Wake up.’

Eperitus opened his eyes a fraction before the palm of a hand struck him across his cheek, whipping his head to one side. Snatched from a dream about the Greek camp, in which Astynome was once more his lover, his senses struggled to grasp hold of something that would bring him back to reality and tell him where he was. The stench of burning fat pricked at his nostrils and he could hear the hiss of a single torch. By its wavering light he could see he was in a small, unfamiliar room, the corners of which were piled up with large sacks – probably of barley, judging by the smell. He was seated in a hard wooden chair, but when he tried to move he discovered he was bound by several cords of flax that wrapped around his abdomen and pinned his arms uselessly at his sides. He blinked and stared at the face of the man who had hit him – a face he did not know – then suddenly remembered he was a prisoner in Troy, alone and far away from the help of his friends.

‘Who in Hades are you?’ he demanded, reviving quickly from his slumber and looking around at what appeared to be a windowless storeroom.

The man did not answer, but beckoned impatiently to two armed warriors standing by the door.

‘Untie him.’

The men knelt either side of him and picked at the cords holding him to the chair, while the first man drew his sword and waved the point menacingly at his stomach.

‘Don’t even think about trying to escape,’ he warned.

‘What do you want with me?’

No answer. The two men pulled away his bonds and lifted him bodily from the chair, pulling his arms roughly about their shoulders. As they made themselves comfortable with his weight, he placed his feet on the ground and tried to stand. A bolt of pain shot up from his wounded leg. If he had not been supported he would have collapsed to the floor. Then the first man opened the door to reveal two more guards waiting outside, who followed behind the others as they carried Eperitus through a confusion of half-lit corridors, up steps, through more corridors and into the great hall of his father’s house, which he recognised from when Astynome had been tending his wound. He looked for her in the shadows cast by the flaming hearth, but saw no-one in the fleeting moments before he was dragged to another door and out into bright, blinding sunlight. His eyes had become accustomed to darkness and he was forced to squeeze them shut while he was taken through what smelled like a garden filled with shrubs and strongly scented flowers. He tried blinking, but caught only confused snatches of his surroundings. More baffling was the faint hissing he could hear in the background. Then he felt himself dumped into another chair, while his arms were pinned painfully behind its hard wooden back and bound tightly with more flax cords.

‘Stay close and keep your weapons to hand,’ a familiar voice ordered the guards.