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

‘The king’s alive and well. Where’s Astynome?’

The others all looked at the stern, where a young, helmeted soldier was leaning back against the rear of the ship with his elbows on the rail. As Eperitus stared at him, trying to picture his grubby, smoke-stained face with a beard, the soldier removed his helmet and shook out his long black hair. It was Astynome.

Eperitus left his comrades and hastened to the rear of the galley, where he was met with a warm embrace and a long kiss. When he finally pulled his lips away from hers, he looked down in amazement at her leather breastplate, the greaves about her shins and the short sword hanging from a scabbard in her belt. Astynome stood back and opened her arms so that he could admire her more fully.

‘I had to strap my chest down with bands of cloth before I could get the armour to fit,’ she explained, tapping her fingers on the cuirass, ‘and this sword’s beginning to weigh me down a bit, but other than that I could almost be an Ithacan. Don’t you agree?’

‘You lack one important thing: a sprig of the chelonion flower – the badge we Ithacans wear to remind us of our homeland. Here.’ He took the fragment that remained of his own chelonion from his belt and tucked it into hers. ‘Now you’re an Ithacan warrior. And a more brutal, fearsome figure I’ve never seen before.’

Her grimed face broke with a smile and she slapped his breastplate playfully, before allowing him to take her into his arms and kiss her again.

‘So, are you going to tell me why you’re dressed as a soldier? Especially as a Greek, your despised enemies.’

‘Omeros’s idea, after Agamemnon’s men started searching the ships for plunder and captured Trojans.’

‘On what grounds?’ Eperitus asked, a hint of anger in his voice.

‘For fair redistribution,’ she replied, raising her eyebrows questioningly. ‘I wanted to dress as a slave, but Omeros said they were even taking women who’d been with the army for years, unless they could prove otherwise.’

Eperitus laughed. ‘ Now , I understand. They shaved their beards so that you wouldn’t stand out. See how much they love you already?’

‘Me? Not me, Eperitus – you! They love you as much as they do their own king. It’s clear from the way they talk about you both – and fret about you when you’re not here. They protected me because I’m your woman, not for any gallant notions of defending an escapee from Troy.’

He gave a dismissive shrug to hide his embarrassment and turned away to look at the still-burning city with its columns of black smoke driven at angles by the westerly wind.

‘Did you go after your father?’ she asked, cautiously.

‘Yes.’

She put her arm about his waist and kissed his shoulder. ‘I knew you wouldn’t listen to me.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘Oh? Then did he escape?’

‘He’s dead. He took his own life. Right up until I entered his house last night, I’d always thought I would be the one to kill him. Then it all changed. The gods had other plans, I suppose. It’s strange, but now he’s gone I wish he hadn’t died in such an ignoble way. For all his wicked, misguided ambitions, he was a great warrior – the greatest I’ve ever had to fight. The only satisfaction I take from the whole thing is that I didn’t have to kill him myself.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

He kissed her forehead.

‘It’s strange, though. I should be happy that he’s dead, but instead I just feel … empty . Now the war’s over and he’s gone, I’m not sure what lies ahead any more. For the first time since he exiled me from Alybas and gave me a purpose in life, my future’s suddenly uncertain again.’

‘So like a man,’ Astynome smiled, shaking her head. ‘You spend years not knowing whether today’s going to be your last one on earth, then the moment the danger’s removed and your life is safe again you feel lost, as if your whole reason for existence has been taken away. Well, it hasn’t. You have me and together we will make a home on Ithaca and populate half the island with our children. That’ll keep you occupied!’

He laughed and brushed his fingertips over the small but distinct cleft in her chin, admiring the beauty that layers of smoke and dirt could not hide.

‘It sounds like a good way to stay busy. And perhaps,’ he whispered, with a glance towards the rest of the crew, sitting on the benches and chatting, ‘we’ll be able to make a start before the fleet sails.’

He kissed her and raised a hand to touch her breast, only to find the hardened leather of her borrowed cuirass. She laughed, her mouth so close he could feel the brush of her breath on his lips. Then her smile faded and she pulled back, looking down at his chest and frowning.

‘But your need for vengeance hasn’t been satisfied yet, has it? Your father’s dead, but –’

‘But Agamemnon still lives,’ he finished. ‘I know.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘It’s hard for a warrior to accept injustice, especially when done to someone he loves. What would you do if a man murdered your daughter?’

‘I’m a woman, not a warrior. I would weep for the child, and eventually I would start again. You must do the same, Eperitus. You know you cannot face Agamemnon – if you do you will die – but if you swallow your hatred for him then you can have another daughter with me. Reclaim the life he took from you; don’t let him prevent you from being a father a second time. And then be the parent your own father was not. Don’t you see you have the power to destroy everything, or to make everything right again?’

Her words had a feminine logic, full of hope and the desire to renew and nurture life. Eperitus sighed.

‘Even if I had a chance to kill Agamemnon, I couldn’t take it,’ he said, turning to lean his forearms on the bow rail and look again at the ruins of Troy. ‘I swore to Clytaemnestra I would not, so I have to be satisfied that she will repay him for his crimes. And yet I wish I could just do something .’

Astynome joined him, resting her head against his shoulder. Together they watched the teams of men working at every point of the walls, dismantling the battlements stone by stone and sending the huge blocks tumbling to the ground below. Progress was slow, but already the great defences had lost their sense of order and uniformity, taking on a frayed look as if the seas had risen up and smoothed away their edges. The perfection that the gods had made was being destroyed by men in an act of sacrilegious vandalism. From the streets behind the walls came the hiss of fire and the occasional crash of yet another building succumbing to the flames. These sounds were dominated, though, by the incessant beating of hammer and pick, as those structures that the fires were not bringing down were made unusable by the hands of the Greek army, its tight discipline restored now after its fanatical rampage of the night before. Other soldiers were still busy carrying out the plunder from the city and placing it in carefully arranged heaps outside the walls, marching back and forth in lines like ants.

‘So ends Troy,’ Astynome sighed.

‘As long as the stones remain, the city can be rebuilt,’ Eperitus replied.

‘But who will build it? With every male dead, who will come back and restore Troy to anything like her former glory? And look! There’s another. They’ve been doing it all morning!’

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face against his armoured chest. Eperitus looked and saw two men on top of one of the towers, holding a small boy between them. The boy struggled when he understood why they had taken him up to the battlements, then the men pitched him over the broken parapet and his body was dashed to death on the stones below. Only then did Eperitus see the other boys, scores of them, lying all along the circuit of the walls in the strange, confused poses of bodies from which the energy of life had departed.