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

Odysseus slipped his arms from about Menelaus’s chest and eased the sword from his fingertips. Menelaus did not move.

‘I wanted you back,’ he replied. ‘That’s why I came after you. I’ve thought of little else since we first landed on these shores.’

‘And now you have me.’

‘Do I, Helen?’ Menelaus retorted. ‘Do I have my wife back, or – as it seems to me now we are face-to-face again – am I simply stealing another man’s woman, nothing more than a slave to tend to my needs and sleep with me, hiding her hatred beneath a bowed head? If that’s the case, then we’ll both be better off if I kill you now.’

Helen dropped the sword that had murdered Deiphobus and held her bloodstained hands imploringly towards Menelaus.

‘Don’t let it all be in vain. We were man and wife once; we can be again, and not without love, as you fear. Tell him, Odysseus. Tell him how I begged you to take me back with you to the Greek camp, so that I could be with my rightful husband again.’

Odysseus remembered how Helen had pleaded with him to take her from Troy, even offering him her body if he would return her to Menelaus and free her from the confines of the city walls and forced marriage to Deiphobus. He also recalled his debt to her, for not giving him away to the Trojan guards when he was at her mercy.

‘It’s true, Menelaus, and if she hadn’t insisted on bringing Pleisthenes it might have been possible. And look there. Is that the act of a woman in love, to murder her husband in cold blood?’

‘That poor soul?’ Menelaus said. ‘Even I can see she didn’t love him. But Deiphobus isn’t my concern – Paris is. The man who entered my house as a guest and left a thief, surrendering his honour for the sake of my wife.’ He turned his eyes on Helen. ‘Last year I might have believed you still loved me, that this whole war had a true purpose. Then I faced Paris on the battlefield and he told me the truth: that you fell in love with him in Sparta; that you came to Troy not as a captive but of your own free will. Is that true, Helen?’

Menelaus’s tone was threatening, and yet there was doubt in it, too. And hope.

Helen looked down at the bloodstained furs.

‘Why dwell on the events of a decade ago? The only thing that matters is here and now.’

‘No! Our lives are founded in the past. If you betrayed me then you can do it again, and I would rather kill you now than have that.’

Helen paused, then raised her eyes to his, fixing his gaze.

‘I never loved Paris,’ she lied. Her features were firm, but Odysseus saw the glint of a tear in the corner of her eye. ‘I never loved him, Menelaus. He took me from you against my will, brought me here and forced me to marry him. I would never have left my children, or you, for another.’

‘Yet you came to love him,’ Menelaus countered. ‘You shared his bed willingly, happily. You were lovers.’

Helen’s tears were flowing now and as her eyes flickered towards Odysseus he saw shame in them, knowing he knew she was lying.

‘I never loved him,’ she sobbed. ‘His touch repulsed me, and though he forced himself upon me I never gave myself willingly.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Menelaus insisted. ‘You enjoyed being mounted by him!’

There was no conviction in his words now. The last of his anger was submitting to his desire for her, a desire that revealed itself by his talk of Paris and Helen’s lovemaking. Helen must have realised this and seen that the contest was entering a realm where she had the dominant power. She took a few paces towards him and fell to her knees.

‘My body has always been yours, Menelaus,’ she said, seizing the front of her chiton and tearing it open, ‘and it will be yours again.’

A splintering crash came from somewhere within the depths of the palace, followed by a woman’s scream. Menelaus glanced over his shoulder, then back down at Helen. The sight of her perfect face and her bared breasts were almost enough for him. And yet he still refused to surrender to his need for her.

‘Swear it, Helen. Swear by the name of Aphrodite that you never loved Paris. Swear he took you from our home against your will.’ With a swift movement, he pulled a dagger from his belt and held the point to her throat. ‘Swear it, or by Ares’s sword I will slice your beautiful head from your shoulders and throw it into the flames of Troy!’

‘Menelaus, give me the dagger.’ Odysseus’s sword was pressed against the Spartan’s ribs. ‘Helen saw through my disguise when I came to steal the Palladium, but she didn’t betray me to the Trojans. She even drugged the temple guards and showed me a way to leave the city unnoticed. Without her Troy would never have fallen, and if that doesn’t convince you of her loyalty to you then I don’t know what will. But I also owe her my life, and if you don’t take that blade from her throat then I’ll run you through. Do you understand me?’

‘All I want is her oath, sworn in the name of Aphrodite,’ Menelaus hissed, without removing his eyes from Helen or his dagger from her neck.

More screams came from the corridors behind them. Then Helen spoke, with her eyes closed and her voice trembling.

‘I swear it, Menelaus. As Aphrodite is my witness, I never loved anyone but you.’

Menelaus withdrew the blade and tossed it into a corner of the room. Dropping to his knees, he wrapped his arms around his wife and drew her clumsily into his chest. He pressed his face into her hair, the tears falling heavily from his eyes again as he breathed in lungfuls of her perfume.

‘Then you’re mine again, at last, and this cursed war is truly over. Let’s find Pleisthenes and go home. To Sparta.’

Chapter Forty

L OVE AND V ENGEANCE

The streets of Pergamos were confusing in a night without moon or stars, lit only by the reflected orange glow from the fires that were springing up in the lower city, but it was not long before Eperitus found himself emerging from the shadows opposite the temple of Apollo. His father’s two-storeyed house was beside it, and after a quick glance at the dark doorways and windows of the surrounding buildings, Eperitus crossed to the modest portico with its twin columns standing like sentinels, one on either side.

His heart beat faster as he laid his palms against the wooden doors and paused. For a whole night and day in the cramped discomfort of the wooden horse he had pondered this moment and what he would do when it came. Sitting on the hard bench with his head in his hands, he had thought about Astynome and all they had been through together. Despite her betrayal, he knew she loved him and that he still loved her. That was something worth fighting for, something much greater than the cold, selfish motivations of glory that had given his life meaning before. It was why Odysseus had let him go. The king knew the value of love, and that Eperitus would need to protect Astynome from the army of vengeful Greeks that would soon be rampaging through the citadel.

But if Eperitus wanted nothing more than to sail back with Astynome to Ithaca, where Agamemnon, Apheidas and the walls of Troy would never be able to separate them again, he knew that even then he could not find satisfaction until he had faced his father for one last time. Unlike his lust for glory, he could not so quickly abandon his need for revenge. Apheidas had caused too much destruction in his life for him to simply turn his back and walk away. What was more, if he was to enjoy the future in peace with Astynome he had first to rid himself of the shadow of his past. He was sure Odysseus had known that, too.

He leaned his weight against the wooden doors, which were unbarred and swung open easily. Inside was the main hall, dark but for the red glow of the fire that seemed to pulsate like a heart at its centre. Eperitus shut the doors quietly behind him and waited, letting his supernatural senses expand into the cavernous black chamber. The light from the hearth did not reach beyond the four pillars that surrounded it, but his keen eyes could pick out the erect shapes of several chairs, a number of long tables pushed against the walls, and the faded outlines of the murals on the plaster above them. Through the smell of burning wood and ashes, he could discern the lingering aromas of bread, roast meat and wine from an earlier meal, mingling with other smells from deeper within the house. The air in the hall was still, other than the slight updraft as the smoke from the hearth was drawn through the hole in the apex of the ceiling, and the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the creaking of wooden beams as they settled in the cooler night air. And the faint, restrained breathing of the other person in the room.