Glyn Iliffe - The Gates Of Troy (Adventures of Odysseus)

Shouts of agreement followed and Achilles, sensing he was gaining the support of a large part of the council, turned to Agamemnon.

‘It’s true – Philoctetes doesn’t have the blood of gods or kings in his veins. He was just a shepherd boy when Heracles awarded him his magical bow and arrows, and it’s only by that single chance that he has been given honour and power in his own country. By right, Medon should be leading the men of Malia, not Philoctetes. At least he is of noble birth.’

Achilles signalled to a short, burly warrior with leathery skin and a hardened look in his eye. Medon rose from his seat and looked about at the ring of faces.

‘Achilles has already spoken to me about this,’ he said in a low, hoarse voice, ‘and I’ve agreed to end Philoctetes’s misery and take command in his place.’

‘How noble of you, Medon,’ said Agamemnon sarcastically, this time rising from his seat and taking two steps forward. ‘But isn’t this more to do with your anger, Achilles, at losing the race to Tenedos? Because of your hurt pride, you would have an innocent man slaughtered like a dumb beast.’

Achilles’s hand flew to the pommel of his sword. ‘That’s a fine accusation to make,’ he retorted, his face red with anger, ‘when you only awarded the victory to Philoctetes because I tried to prevent the sacrifice of Iphigenia. And how can you accuse me of wanting to kill Philoctetes like a dumb beast when you murdered your own daughter in cold blood!’

Suddenly Agamemnon’s hand was on the hilt of his sword, tugging the blade free of its scabbard. Achilles’s own weapon was quick to meet it and, with a loud slither of metal, the razor sharp edges grated against each other. Then a third sword swept upwards and knocked them apart, and a moment later Eperitus placed himself between the two men.

‘Sheathe your weapons,’ he commanded. ‘Use your anger on the Trojans, my lords, not each other.’

Agamemnon was the first to step back, his cool exterior quickly reimposing itself.

‘Come, Achilles,’ he said. ‘Eperitus is right, there’s no profit in squabbling among ourselves.’

Achilles hesitated, then slid his sword back into his sheath. ‘And Philoctetes?’ he persisted, eyeing the King of Men with poorly disguised anger. ‘What are we to do about him?’

‘Send him to Lemnos,’ Odysseus suggested, rising from his bench. After the bitter exchange between Agamemnon and Achilles, the King of Ithaca’s deep voice seemed calm and reassuring, filled with wisdom and justice. ‘There’s nothing more we can do for him here, and as Achilles rightly suggests he’ll only be an annoyance to the men. But there’s no need to kill the poor wretch; he deserves compassion, not murder. Instead, we should leave him on Lemnos for now and return for him when the war is over. Medon can have his wish to lead the Malians, on the condition he and his men share their plunder with Philoctetes.’

There was a chorus of agreement from the benches. Odysseus looked directly at Achilles, who after a few moments nodded and handed the speaker’s staff back to Nestor. Though he had seemed determined to see Philoctetes dead, he was content with the lesser victory of having the archer marooned for the duration of the war. He returned to his bench and sat down.

Agamemnon also returned to his seat, but not before he had turned to Eperitus and given him a curt nod of thanks for his intervention. For his own part, Eperitus felt an uneasy mixture of loathing and satisfaction. He would rather have allowed Achilles’s proud anger to strike Agamemnon dead – a fitting end for an abhorrent man. But he was honour-bound to defend the King of Men, and a small corner of his mind took pleasure from the knowledge that Clytaemnestra’s revenge would be much more terrible than a swift thrust of Achilles’s sword.

He returned to his seat next to Odysseus as Nestor stepped back into the centre of the council. The golden staff gleamed in his hand, the jewels upon its head glittering in the torchlight.

‘Tomorrow, then, Odysseus will transport Philoctetes to Lemnos while we rest and gather our strength. A sizeable landing party will seize the bay a little further up the coast, as already planned, and anybody found there or on the hills about it will be killed or taken prisoner. All shipping passing the bay is to be captured and held. Every measure has to be taken to prevent news of our arrival reaching King Priam. Then, the morning after, we attack.’

‘Curse you, Odysseus,’ Philoctetes hissed from the prow of the ship, where he had been laid with his arms and legs bound. By now he was exhausted from the pain of his wound and a night without sleep, and his voice was hoarse and weary. ‘Curse Achilles. Curse Agamemnon. Curse all Ithacans. And curse this damnable wound. Oh, in the name of all the gods, won’t you please kill me?’

‘It’s just not right,’ said Antiphus as he pulled back on his oar. His voice was muffled by the damp strip of cloth he wore to filter out the worst of the stench; all the crew had them. ‘I’ve never seen such archery. I don’t care how much he complains or how bad he smells, that man could hit Priam in the eye if he was on the loftiest tower in all Ilium. We should be taking him to the war, not from it.’

But Antiphus had few sympathizers on the galley, whose crew had been forced to endure the obnoxious Philoctetes since before dawn that morning. They had spent the night listening to his screams of pain while he was on the cliff top on Tenedos, so to be confined with him on the claustrophobic deck of a ship had driven them almost beyond the limit of their endurance. Only the knowledge that they would soon be rid of him prevented them from throwing him overboard.

Odysseus ignored Antiphus and peered out through the thick mists, looking for rocks as he steered the galley into the lee of a promontory that thrust out from the eastern edge of the island. The sail had been furled and the crew were busy at the oars. The only sound was the trickle of water running off the oar blades and the occasional cawing of gulls in the air above. The sun was in the sky, but they could only sense its presence as a concentrated point of whiteness in the dense fog that enveloped everything.

‘This will do,’ Odysseus announced, catching a glimpse of a rocky shoreline to his right. ‘Throw out the anchor stones and make the boat ready.’

Two loud splashes followed, while on the benches an argument broke out between the oarsmen about who should fetch the boat. Clearly, no one wanted the job of rowing Philoctetes to shore.

‘Stop that bickering at once,’ Eperitus snapped. ‘Arceisius and Eurybates, get the boat ready; Eurylochus and Polites, bring Philoctetes – and be gentle with him. And you can fetch his bow and arrows, Antiphus.’

The boat was lowered into the water and the two oarsmen took their places with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Eurylochus shot a hateful glance at Eperitus as he moved with deliberate slowness to the prow, then stood by as the huge arms of Polites scooped Philoctetes up from the deck and carried him to the side. The rest of the crew turned away in disgust as he passed, pressing their damp face-cloths closer to their noses. Only Antiphus showed any enthusiasm, running to fetch the magnificent weapons that had once belonged to Heracles and handling them with reverence and admiration.

Once Polites had tenderly lowered the unhappy figure of Philoctetes into the small boat and clambered out again – seemingly ignorant of the string of curses that were directed at him – Odysseus and Eperitus stepped into the small, unsteady vessel and sat down. Antiphus begged to be allowed to join them, and it was with great relief and pleasure that Eurybates surrendered his place at the oars to him. Once Antiphus was aboard, they pushed off into the mist and rowed slowly towards the shore. All about them sharp black rocks poked out of the water and more than once they felt the bottom of the boat scraping across stone. Then they reached a low, flat shelf of rock pitted with little pools of water and criss-crossed with weathered cracks.