Glyn Iliffe - King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded. ‘Am I forbidden to speak with noble-born men? And besides, my father wouldn’t care who showed an interest in me.’

She shook his hand loose but her feeble anger could not disguise the deeper, more compelling feeling beneath. It showed in her dilated pupils and the colour in her cheeks. Her breathing became slightly heavier through her nostrils, so that she had to slightly open her mouth to steady its rhythm. Her nipples stood up beneath the woven material of her dress.

‘Why do you avoid me?’ he asked her, urgently.

‘I don’t know what you mean. You don’t have exclusive access to my company, Odysseus of Ithaca. And what does it matter whether I talk to you or not?’

Odysseus looked at her and knew that, for all his wit and guile, he could not lie to her – and would never want to.

‘Because I love you.’

Penelope looked at him with wide eyes, shocked by his admission. She continued to look at him, and as if for the first time took in the details of his face, his hair, his awkward, muscular body. The crazed tensions that had been crawling through her flesh since dressing became more fluid, running throughout her body with a wild abandon that loosened every nerve and made her horribly, frighteningly weak before him. The noises of the room were stilled by his heavy breathing, the light of the many torches dimmed by his green eyes as they searched into hers. She had wanted him before, but now it was as if she no longer had control of her truest desires. Her emotions had taken command of her body, foremost amongst them the dominant, all-consuming compulsion to be with him and to give to him everything that had been her own for so long.

‘Isn’t that why you’ve rejected me?’ Odysseus persisted.

He placed his hands on her sides, a presumption that she did not resist. The palm and fingers of his right hand parted the split in her dress and shaped themselves to the curve between her hip bone and lower ribs. His touch made her almost frenzied with the need of him.

‘Because you’re afraid of your own love for me, aren’t you? Tell me, Penelope. Say it.’

‘I don’t know. Yes. Yes, I want you.’

As the words forced themselves free from her lips she heard a voice calling her name. It was harsh and driven with anger; Little Ajax had discovered Odysseus’s trick and was forcing his way back across the great hall at that very moment. His shouts urged her to desperation.

‘I must go. Come to my room tonight – soon! There’s an olive tree opposite my window where you can enter without being seen by the guards. I’ll be waiting for you.’

Suddenly Damastor found them.

‘Little Ajax knows he’s been fooled, my lord. The runt is looking for a fight.’

‘I haven’t got time to give him that satisfaction tonight,’ Odysseus answered as he watched Penelope disappear into the throng. ‘ She wants me. Quickly, Damastor, do you know an olive tree opposite the women’s quarters?’

A hazy sliver of moon slumbered beneath a thin veil of cloud, its half-lidded eye illuminating each swirl and eddy of the dark vapours as they were fanned across the night sky. By its dim light Odysseus picked his way up the twisted bole of the old tree, slipping dangerously in his haste to be with the woman he loved. His mind whirled with the excitement of knowing she returned his love and would very soon be his. Helen, the beacon that had drawn him to Sparta and the prize that would give him back his homeland, was forgotten.

He crawled out to the end of a long branch that pointed with forlorn rigidity towards a window in the palace wall. Leaning across, he seized the lip of the window and hauled himself over the ledge to land in a heap on the bedroom floor. He lay on his back and looked up at the plain but spacious room. Its high ceiling loomed above him, whilst by his head was the foot of a large bed. As he looked, Penelope’s face appeared over the edge and peered down at him.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I think so. Isn’t there an easier way to reach you?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ she answered, watching him rise to his feet and stand before her. She sat up and the split in her dress fell open over her thigh. ‘Unless you want to fight your way through the guards.’

‘You’d be worth it.’

She tossed her head back and untied her hair so that it streamed down across her back. Taking a deep breath, she leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling again the desire for Odysseus that had gripped her in the great hall. A spasm of sheer lust ran from her groin up into her breasts and down again to her stomach, flowing out into the very tips of her toes and fingers. Nervously, her hand wandered to the cord about her waist, fumbled with the knot and released it. The clinging dress drifted free of her arched back and buttocks, letting in the cool air of the moonlit room to play freely over her flesh.

She sensed the man watching her every move and, enjoying his attention, lifted her hand to the brooch at her shoulder. Her eyes remained closed as she undid the two pins, allowing the dress to slip down over her smooth skin to reveal her nakedness. For the first time in her life she had exposed her natural state to a man, and yet nerves and inexperience could not subdue the lust within her. Opening her eyes, she lay back on the bed and held out a hand to him.

‘Come here, Odysseus.’

In the corridors below them Damastor approached an officer of the guard, who barred his way with a spear.

‘No men beyond this point. Women only.’

‘But there’s an intruder in the women’s quarters. One of the slave women has just told me.’

The soldier looked at him puzzled. ‘That’s impossible, or I’d have seen him myself.’

‘Well, he’s up there. In Penelope’s room. Do you want to risk the wrath of her father?’

The guard did not seem frightened by the threat, but knew the duties laid upon him. ‘All right then, we’ll have a look. And you’d better return to the feast.’

Damastor headed back to the great hall, smiling to himself. The moment he realized Odysseus was intending to climb up to Penelope’s room, he had remembered that the punishment for entering the women’s quarters was death and seized his opportunity. At last, it seemed, the gods were on his side.

Behind him, the guard officer turned and called back along the corridor. Two men emerged with spears in their hands and came running towards him. One of them was directed to fetch King Icarius, whilst the other accompanied the officer up the steps that led to the next floor. They rushed along the torch-lit corridor that linked the many rooms of the women’s quarters, shouting the princess’s name as they ran. Turning a corner they were suddenly at the door to her room, where they paused momentarily to listen for any suspicious sound beyond the thick wood. Then they heard voices, hushed and urgent. The door burst open with one kick and they ran into the darkened room.

Penelope fell back onto the bed, clutching a blanket to herself. By the window, where the thin light of the moon infiltrated the shadows, they saw a naked man. He took one look at them, then plucked up his clothes from the floor and dashed to the window. They were after him in a heartbeat, but to their shock he leapt out into the night air, heedless of the drop two floors to the ground.

‘Help me!’ Penelope called behind them.

Turning they saw her kneeling naked on the bed, the blanket in a pile at her knees. For a moment all thoughts of the intruder were forgotten.

‘He attacked me,’ she pleaded. Having stolen their attention away from the escape of her lover, she pulled the cover back over herself again. ‘He was here when I returned from the feast.’