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

The assembly exploded with a sudden call to arms, a call that Agamemnon was ready to embrace and encourage.

‘So be it. Muster your armies on the plain. Summon every man capable of bearing arms. Troy falls today!’

Eperitus watched the kings exit the tent, all of them eager to be in the forefront of the coming battle. Even Diomedes went with them, leaving Eperitus suddenly doubtful of his own conviction that the attack would fail. He wondered whether, after being in the thick of the fighting for ten years, he and the rest of the Ithacans were about to miss the final defeat of their enemies. Then he shook his head, as if to rid himself of the ridiculous notion, and turned to the king.

‘Why didn’t you speak up, Odysseus? You know this is madness – do they really think another assault on the walls is going to make any difference?’

Odysseus hooked his large hand around Eperitus’s elbow and pulled him through the crowded tent to one of the exits. Men were fighting each other to be the first out and back to their armies, so drunk were they with the thought that the gods were about to give them victory. Eperitus watched them in disgust, as if he stood alone on an island of reason while the rest of the Greeks crashed about him in a storm of insanity. He followed Odysseus through the crush and soon felt the soft sand giving way beneath his sandals, hearing once more the liberating sound of the waves rolling against the shore and the cry of the seagulls hovering overhead.

‘Odysseus, why don’t you call them to their senses?’ he implored, casting a glance over his shoulder at the running figures spreading through the camp like a fire. ‘Climb up on the prow of one of these galleys and shout out. Tell them this is folly. Do you want the blood of hundreds of men on your hands?’

At this, Odysseus stopped and turned to face his captain.

‘Eperitus, I know as well as you do that these men are going to certain defeat. And maybe I could stop them if I tried – maybe. But I have a plan to conquer Troy now, a plan given to me by the gods, and if that plan is to succeed then the Greeks must taste defeat one last time. I’ll explain everything in my hut, but first we have to find Omeros.’

Chapter Thirty-three

H OPE OUT OF D EFEAT

Penelope rarely felt happier than when she was visiting the pig farm at the southern end of Ithaca. The sight of the fat swine trotting through the mud in the wide pens, their tiny eyes half hidden by their flapping ears, always brought a smile to her face. Even better was to be free from the confines of the small palace and out in the open air, where the sky seemed to go on forever and she could gaze south-east towards the horizon – the direction Odysseus would return by when the war in Troy eventually ended. But as she leaned against the wooden timbers that kept the noisy beasts from wandering off, she felt ever more sharply the absence of her son.

She looked down at Argus, sitting faithfully at her side with his ears pricked up and his tail wagging. He was looking expectantly towards the road that came down from the north, passing through fields of gnarled and windswept olive trees.

‘What is it, boy?’

The boarhound gave a bark and stood on all fours. Penelope followed his gaze and saw a horseman approaching along the road, leaving a trail of dust behind him.

‘Looks like Mentor, my lady,’ said Eumaeus, the swineherd, who was standing among his pigs and throwing out handfuls of wild nuts and berries from a leather satchel at his hip.

Moments later the horseman had reached Eumaeus’s hut and was tying the reins of his mount to a post. A tall black dog came out of the hut and advanced growling towards him, followed by four black puppies yapping noisily in high voices. Then, when their mother recognised Mentor and allowed him to run a hand over her ears, the puppies turned on each other and began fighting among themselves.

‘Good morning!’ Mentor called.

Eumaeus threw a last handful of feed to the grunting pigs, then climbed the fence and went to meet him. Penelope propped her elbow on a timber post and watched them embrace. Eumaeus said something she did not catch then disappeared inside his hut. Mentor spotted his queen and strode toward her.

‘So here you are, my lady,’ he said, greeting her with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. ‘You’ve been avoiding me since the Kerosia, I think.’

‘You’ve been away.’

‘A few days in Samos, looking after the king’s business. But every time I’ve called at the palace you’ve been busy or absent.’

She shrugged apologetically, conceding the point. ‘I just knew you’d have some awkward questions, which I didn’t want to have to answer with so many servants around.’

‘Don’t you trust them?’

‘Some, but not all. And too many of them are inclined to gossip.’

‘So what don’t you want them gossiping about?’

‘My reasons for agreeing to Eupeithes’s proposal,’ she answered, turning and leaning her forearms on the fence. ‘That’s why you’ve come out here to find me, isn’t it?’

‘Of course,’ he admitted, joining her. ‘Well, are you going to tell me?’

She sighed. ‘For one thing, I want my son back here. At my side. While Telemachus stands to inherit the throne he’s in danger, but under Eupeithes’s proposal that danger is gone.’

‘Don’t you think Eupeithes might have been offering you a reason to bring him back so he could try to kill him again? With Telemachus dead there’ll be no other challengers to the throne.’

‘No, he won’t risk upsetting the balance of things. At the least he’ll wait until I remarry. And I would have thought you ’d be pleased to have him back under your tutelage. You’ve taught him all he knows, Mentor, and he loves you like a –’

She faltered.

‘Like a father?’

Penelope smiled wanly. ‘Yes, I suppose so. That’s what you’ve been to him in Odysseus’s absence.’

‘Odysseus will return soon,’ Mentor said. ‘The oracle will confirm that. Antinous and I depart in the morning, you know.’

‘I know.’

Eumaeus reappeared from the hut with a cup of water in his hand. His guard dog and her puppies came leaping after him and Argus trotted out to meet them. The swineherd handed the small wooden bowl to Mentor, who drained the cool liquid in one draught and placed the cup down on top of a flat-headed fencepost. Eumaeus swung himself over the low barrier and resumed feeding his pigs, while Penelope hooked her arm through Mentor’s and led him in the opposite direction.

‘Have you already forgotten the oracle that was given to Odysseus twenty years ago? If he went to Troy, he’d be doomed not to come home again for twenty years.’

‘You know about that?’ Mentor asked, surprised.

‘He told me before he left,’ she replied. ‘It wasn’t easy to take, but he also insisted a man has the power to change his destiny if he really wants to. And I believe him.’

‘So what are you saying? You agreed to Eupeithes’s proposal on the grounds of an oracle you don’t think will come true?’

Penelope shook her head. ‘If I’d refused altogether, Eupeithes might have been tempted to force his way into power again, especially in his current mood and with that pack of wolves growling away behind him. We can’t allow that to happen. But you’re missing my point about the oracle. I don’t believe Odysseus is bound by the Pythoness’s words – I can’t afford to believe it, even though the war has already lasted ten years – but if she predicted then that he wouldn’t return for twenty years, surely she will now say he’ll be gone for another decade? By the oath we all took at the Kerosia, and which was announced publicly, that means Eupeithes can’t force me to do anything for ten more years. Not without civil war, and I’m gambling he hasn’t the courage for that if there’s a peaceful alternative.’