Glyn Iliffe - King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

Clytaemnestra sensed Eperitus’s sadness and put a hand cautiously upon his shoulder. She began stroking him with awkward movements, her long fingers running towards his neck and rubbing against the knuckles of his upper spine. They lingered there and his thoughts, for a moment, were no longer directed against Odysseus and Penelope but dwelt upon her. He thought of what it would be like to return her touch, to hold her slender body in his arms. Women had rarely featured in his martial lifestyle, but he would have given anything to be with her there and then. But the moment slipped away. She withdrew her hand, tucking it into a fold of her clothing as if burnt. She stood.

‘Soon my father will announce Helen’s husband. I’ll return to you then so you’ll know when to expect Odysseus’s departure – he won’t leave before the marriage ceremony. That’s assuming you still wish to serve him.’

The question of not serving Odysseus had never crossed Eperitus’s mind. Despite his moment of jealousy, he was bound to the prince by an oath and would not go back on his word. His only hope of finding a home lay in the liberation of Ithaca, and he would do everything in his power to help Odysseus win back his homeland.

‘I do,’ he said.

Without a word, Clytaemnestra disappeared back into the night, leaving him to wonder once more how she would return to Sparta through the perils of the dark. Shortly afterwards he heard the cry of a lone wolf on the valley plain below, calling out into the emptiness of the night.

Despite the news of Odysseus’s marriage to Penelope, Eperitus spent most of the next day thinking of Clytaemnestra. As he watched Sparta for signs of any activity, he found himself looking forward to the evening and the possibility of her return. She had a strength and hardness he both admired and pitied. The cruelties she had suffered over the years had made her as tough as any warrior he knew, but beneath her flint-like exterior was a softness that was deep and consuming. He had seen glimpses of the real Clytaemnestra during the months at Sparta – brief, heartfelt smiles or moments of tenderness when the natural beauty of her face shone through – and it saddened him that she was the prisoner of a forced, loveless marriage.

As the sun threw the shadows of the mountains across the Eurotas valley, turning the landscape from sallow ochre to a dun brown, he felt keenly the lack of human company. He missed the closeness he had felt in belonging to Odysseus’s men, and it was hard not knowing what was going on at the palace. He wondered how Ajax had reacted to the choice of Menelaus to marry Helen, as Athena had said would happen. And what of Diomedes, the proud warrior who was deeply in love with the princess? How had Little Ajax fared with the loss of Penelope to Odysseus? And what of Helen? With all her hopes of freedom dashed, how would she cope with marriage to a man she did not love? He felt for her most of all, and pitied the girl whose youthful hopes never had a chance of being realized.

These thoughts buzzed around his head long into the night, until the moon was overhead and he knew Clytaemnestra would not appear. Even then sleep was slow in coming, but finally the pressure on his eyelids became too much and he slept until the light of the sun on his face woke him.

There were no signs that he had been visited in the night and so he went about his usual tasks of gathering wood and looking for food. The rest of the day passed in much the same way as the one before, followed by an equally restless and, ultimately, disappointing evening. The next morning he was woken not by sunlight forcing its way through his eyelids, but by splashes of rain on his face. He looked up, blinking against the heavy droplets, to see a ceiling of grey cloud covering the valley and mountains. Quickly he carried his supplies of food and wood into a niche in the rock face and spent the rest of the day hidden beneath the protection of its broken roof as the rain came down.

Making a fire in those conditions was difficult, but as the rain trickled away slowly to nothing he eventually succeeded in his task. Soon a great blaze was burning in the darkness and he stood naked before it, holding first his tunic and then his cloak up to the heat to dry. Then he heard a sound behind him and turned to see Clytaemnestra standing there, shamelessly eyeing his nakedness.

He hastily threw the cloak about his waist and apologized. Saying nothing she approached the flames and picked up his tunic. He put a hand out to take it from her but, as he did so, she threw it onto the flames.

‘What are you doing?’ he objected, trying to get hold of a corner of the garment and pull it free of the flames, though without success. ‘That’s my only tunic. Do you want me to look a fool when I finally get down from this mountain?’

‘Of course not,’ she replied, calmly. ‘That’s why I brought you this.’ She held up a new tunic and handed it to him. ‘I made it myself, especially for you. That old rag you’ve been wearing is a disgrace for a nobleman, so travel-worn and threadbare. Don’t worry, it’ll fit you perfectly.’

Eperitus looked at the garment. He could detect Clytaemnestra’s scent on it, and imagined her long-fingered hands working on the soft material, just for him. He met her eyes and saw that the veil of cynicism and anger had lifted to reveal a young woman in the prime of her life.

‘I’ll put it on now,’ he said, and walked behind a corner of rock to change.

As Eperitus slipped the cloak from around his waist and stood naked once more in the cool night air, he suddenly felt himself being watched. He turned and saw that Clytaemnestra had followed him, but instead of covering himself he allowed her to look at him. It was exhilarating, and for a moment he felt godlike, worshipped, desired. Then he pulled the tunic over his head and picked up his cloak. She returned to stand by the fire as he followed.

‘So Helen’s husband has been chosen,’ he said, as if nothing had happened between them. But something had. The usual formality of their relationship had been bridged, and the bridge could not be recrossed.

‘Yes. They were married today.’

She stood between himself and the fire, her back turned to him, and he could see the silhouette of her body through the thin material of her dress: her bony shoulders; the narrow hips and waist; the gap between the meeting of her legs. A tingling feeling crept across his skin and spread through his whole body, exciting the flesh and shaking off the cold of the night. He wanted her. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her and then to take her, to journey where he had never ventured before.

‘It was Menelaus, wasn’t it?’

‘How did you know?’ she asked, turning towards him.

‘A god told me.’

Clytaemnestra gave him an inquisitive look that was halfway between disbelief and curiosity, but she did not question his knowledge.

‘Anyway, it’s over now and the suitors – all but Menelaus, of course – will be leaving over the next couple of days. I hear Odysseus and his new bride are heading for the sea tomorrow afternoon. They’ll follow the course of the Eurotas and hire themselves a ship when they reach the coast.’

‘So your husband’s plans for a war on Troy have failed?’

‘Yes. Utterly,’ she said, with a grim smile of quiet triumph. ‘There’ll be no war unless Priam turns his ambitions towards Greece itself. Agamemnon’s dream to unite the Greeks can never be revived now.’

‘But when Menelaus inherits Tyndareus’s throne, the Atreides will rule the two most powerful states in Greece. With the combined armies of Sparta and Mycenae they could conquer all the other states, effectively giving Agamemnon what he wanted anyway.’