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

Then, when Omeros told him they had seen Apheidas, he realised he had been wrong. He had to go after him. Whether he wanted to take a final opportunity for revenge – despite everything Astynome had warned him against – or simply hoped to find his father’s body, he could not yet say. Only he knew he had to see the matter to its conclusion.

The ramp to the palace was scattered with the dead and dying. The courtyard above was also covered with corpses, including many Trojan soldiers who had made their last stand there. Now all was still and silent, but for the flames roaring from the upper windows of the once-beautiful building. Then a familiar voice called his name and he turned to see Odysseus running across from the steps that led up to the battlements, followed by Hecabe.

‘Thank the gods you’re alive,’ Odysseus exclaimed, embracing his captain. ‘But where’s Astynome? Didn’t you find her?’

‘She’s safe. And Helen?’

Odysseus nodded and briefly summarised the things he had seen and done since they had parted.

‘And now we need to gather the army back together and restore discipline. Even if Agamemnon has ordered every male to be slain, I won’t have my Ithacans take any more part in it. And I intend to make sure there’s at least one functional part of this army that can offer protection to the women of Troy.’

He glanced at Hecabe, but the old woman understood little or nothing of his Greek.

‘My father’s in the palace,’ Eperitus announced awkwardly, aware that he was asking to neglect his duty as captain of Odysseus’s guard.

‘Then we’d better deal with him first,’ Odysseus replied.

The destruction inside the palace had left it almost unrecognisable, causing Hecabe to wail aloud as her grief was renewed. The plastered walls, many of which had boasted intricate and colourful murals, were now stained by smoke or splashed with blood. Doors had been kicked from their hinges and every room ransacked, leaving behind a mess of dead bodies, smashed furniture and torn hangings. Here and there the debris had been piled up and set alight using torches ripped from their brackets, choking corridors with smoke as the fearsome flames consumed everything within their reach. Covering their faces with the corners of their cloaks, Eperitus, Odysseus and Hecabe pushed on towards the great hall, where Eperitus’s instincts told him they would find his father.

They soon found the antechamber where Eperitus and Odysseus had once awaited an audience with King Priam, in the days before the war. The raging fires had not yet reached this part of the palace, and as they pushed open the large wooden doors they found the throne room in semi-darkness, lit only by the dying glow of the rectangular hearth at its centre.

‘Wait here,’ Odysseus whispered to Hecabe as he and Eperitus clutched their swords and advanced into the gloom.

A row of black columns stood either side of the hearth, drawing the gaze naturally towards the dais at the far end of the great hall. On it was a tall throne cut from a single piece of rock and lined with thick furs. A large man sat on the throne with his elbows propped on his knees and his forehead resting in his hands as he gazed down at the floor. He could almost have been asleep, so still was he, and though he wore no crown his battle-scarred armour and the sword balanced across his lap made him look like a king from Troy’s legendary past. The prostrate forms of dead men lay all around him. A few were old – some of Priam’s counsellors, who must have sought refuge in the great hall and then fought to protect their master’s throne. The rest were soldiers, a mixture of Trojans and Greeks. Whether they had died fighting each other or had been killed by the man on the throne was unclear, but Eperitus guessed Apheidas had bought his new throne in blood.

‘So this is where your ambitions have brought you, Father,’ he said. ‘The last king of a doomed city, with no crown and only dead men to bow down before you.’

‘At least I had ambitions, Son,’ Apheidas replied, lifting his head slowly. ‘Unlike you, ever a slave to the commands of others. Now that’s the Trojan in you.’

‘Better to serve a real king than to become a mockery of one.’

Apheidas shook his head and a tired smile filtered across his face.

‘You’re right, of course. And now I suppose you’ve come to murder me and usurp my mock throne. That was always your driving ambition, wasn’t it – to kill me and restore your precious honour? Well, I won’t resist. My leg’s finally given up, you see,’ he said, patting the thigh Eperitus had wounded earlier. ‘Here I am, king of Troy at last, and even my own body won’t do what I want it to.’

He lowered his face into his hands again and to Eperitus’s shock began to cry, his heavy shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs.

‘Perhaps I should have been more like my father – more like you – a loyal servant, knowing my limitations instead of aiming at things forbidden by the gods. And what have I gained? Your brothers died serving my ambitions and I drove you away, earning your hatred in place of your love. So come and get it over with. Send my miserable ghost down to Hades’s halls, where at least I’ll be able to forget the mess I made while I was alive.’ He took the sword from his lap and tossed it across the hall. ‘Kill me Eperitus; I won’t fight you any more.’

Eperitus looked at his father as he lay with his head back against the throne, inviting death. It was a moment he had hankered after for twenty years, but now it was here he no longer wanted it. He would not be his father’s executioner and inherit his legacy of hatred. Astynome had saved him from that.

Apheidas sensed his reluctance.

‘Kill me, damn it! I murdered Pandion and your friend, didn’t I? I killed Astynome, damn it – do you care so little for her that you can’t even avenge her death!’

‘She isn’t dead – you failed in that, too. But you did bring dishonour on our family and you murdered my friend, Arceisius. Crimes that have to be paid for.’

Eperitus’s fingertips touched the dagger in his belt, the ornate blade that Odysseus had given to him when they had first met. He tugged it free and walked around the long hearth to where his father sat. Apheidas eyed the knife in his son’s hands, then leaned back again and exposed his throat.

‘Do it,’ he rasped through clenched teeth.

‘You do it,’ Eperitus replied, and tossed the blade onto his lap.

Apheidas flinched at its touch, then with shaking hands picked it up and held it before himself. Eperitus stepped back, even now not trusting his father. He turned to look at Odysseus, uncertain, seeking the reassurance of his king, and in that moment Apheidas let out a groan. Eperitus’s head flicked back to see the dagger embedded in his heart, his dying hands slowly peeling away from its hilt. Then his head lolled onto his chest and he was dead.

After a while, Odysseus walked around the hearth and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

‘Time to move on.’

Eperitus nodded. Slipping his grandfather’s shield from his back, he dropped it at Apheidas’s feet then turned and followed Odysseus out of the great hall.

Chapter Forty-five

A T THE S HIPS

Penelope stood beneath the thatched canopy of the lookout post on top of Mount Neriton and gazed at the ocean of cloud that had covered the world. In the distance the mountainous peaks of the mainland pierced the layered vapour like the spines of an ancient monster, while at the furthest edge of creation the chariot of the sun had burst free of the haze and was riding up into the pale skies. Before long, its fierce heat would drive away the low-lying fog and leave land and sea naked before its gaze. For now, though, the air remained damp and chill and the breeze on the mountain top found its way into Penelope’s mist-soaked clothing, forcing her to pull her cloak tighter about herself.