Glyn Iliffe - King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

He briefly explained his plan to have the townsfolk murder one of the Taphian patrols, then flee to prepared positions on Mount Neriton. Polytherses would not fear a group of peasants without armour or proper weapons, of course, but neither could he allow their dissent to go unpunished. So he would send out a significant part of his force to overthrow the rebellion – and straight into an ambush of nearly sixty fully armed soldiers. The storming of the undermanned palace would then be a bloody but brief formality.

He smiled confidently, then led Mentor and the rest of his party away through the trees to skirt the harbour and the western edge of the town. Eperitus set off with Halitherses in the opposite direction, accompanied by Antiphus and five others. They moved in a cautious file, using the rocks, bushes and trees to keep them hidden from the city below as they descended slowly towards it. All around them birds sang freely and the wind sighed in the leaves, whilst the warm air was thick with the strong smell of the sea. Since his life had been restored by the goddess, Eperitus’s senses had improved greatly, to give him a richer awareness of his surroundings: not only could he see better by day or in darkness, but his hearing and sense of smell were also much sharper and more far-ranging. But the new life he had been given had not only improved his physical senses. Now he was aware of things beyond the world of sight, sound and smell. Suddenly he would know if someone was about to speak to him, and would turn to them before they had opened their mouth. Similarly, he would instinctively anticipate movement an instant before it happened, enabling him to react faster and move with a speed that unnerved others. Initially his new abilities were disorientating, but he was fast growing used to them.

Another benefit was a sense of the presence of others. After they had been creeping through the thinly wooded slopes for some time, getting ever closer to the outermost settlements of Ithaca, Eperitus realized that they were being followed.

The trees began to thin out, offering less cover, so they climbed a wall into a vineyard to screen their progress from unwelcome eyes. Here, as the others moved forward, Eperitus ducked down and doubled back to wait behind the chest-high wall. Moments later he heard the sounds of someone approaching with great stealth – a small, light person who made little noise as he reached the wall. Had it not been for his improved hearing Eperitus doubted he would have detected him; but, after a brief pause to listen, their pursuer put an arm on the wall above Eperitus’s head and began to clamber over.

In an instant the warrior was upon him, grabbing him by the tunic and hauling him with a thud onto the ground. He drew his sword and placed the point against his captive’s exposed throat.

And saw that, with his newfound stealth, he had captured a boy of no more than ten years.

‘Don’t worry,’ Eperitus reassured him, withdrawing his sword. ‘I’ll not kill a child. Now get up and tell me who you are.’

‘Arceisius, my lord. My family are loyal to the king. I know you must be a friend of Laertes, too – I saw you with Halitherses.’

‘Is that young Arceisius?’ said Halitherses, returning with the rest of the party. ‘Where are your flocks, boy?’

‘Mostly eaten up by the Taphians, sir. The scrawny animals they’ve left us are back up there on the hillside. Is Odysseus with you?’

‘He is, lad, and if you want to help us stop the Taphians stealing your sheep you’d better answer us a few questions.’ The captain of the guard knelt down so that he was eye to eye with the boy. ‘Don’t exaggerate now, Arceisius, but tell us how many of these folk there are.’

‘Five score and three, not including Polytherses, or Eupeithes, who is his prisoner now.’

‘That’s a very clear answer,’ Halitherses replied, looking up at him and raising an eyebrow. ‘Now, lord Odysseus will want to speak to your father. Where is he?’

‘The Taphians killed him when he tried to stop them stealing his sheep.’

Halitherses tousled the boy’s long hair and stood up. ‘Then we’ll make them pay, Arceisius, don’t you worry. You head back up to your sheep and let us get about our business.’

He turned to go, but the boy tugged at his cloak.

‘The Taphians are paid with wine, partly, but the shipment is a week late. It’s due this evening in a ship from the mainland, and they’re sending some men to escort the wagon back from the harbour. I thought I should tell you because the Taphians are getting angry and Polytherses is scared they’ll take it out on him if the wine doesn’t arrive safely.’

‘Good lad,’ Eperitus told him, understanding the suggestion. If they could somehow stop the wine reaching the palace, perhaps the Taphians would revolt and do their job for them.

‘There’s something else, my lord,’ the shepherd boy said. ‘It’s the reason I was following you. There are Taphians in the woods. They left the city a while ago and headed for the top of the hill. I thought maybe Odysseus was up there.’

‘Zeus’s beard!’ Halitherses exclaimed. ‘They’ll find the camp. Come on. We haven’t a moment to waste.’

Chapter Twenty-eight

TAPHIAN WINE

They ran headlong through the trees without caring whether they could be seen from the city below. Everything now depended upon them reaching the camp before the Taphians: if Polytherses’s men took the Spartans by surprise, they would be massacred. At a stroke Odysseus would have lost over half his warriors, as well as the element of surprise that was so essential to the success of his plans.

Halitherses’s training regime at Sparta had made the Ithacans fit enough to run all day, but their armour and weapons weighed them down. The heavy accoutrements sapped the strength from their limbs as they struggled to climb the steep slopes, frustrating their progress and making them curse beneath their breath, but as they neared the area of their camp they slowed to a cautious walk. Set in a hollow in the ground and surrounded by a screen of trees and bushes, it was visible only to those on the topmost point of the hill. However, the approaches to the hollow were also obscured to within a short distance, enabling them to come quite close before Halitherses signalled for the group to halt. Eperitus was with him at the head of their file and, leaving the others crouching amongst some rocks, the two men crawled up to a knot of bushes for a better view.

‘I can hear voices,’ Halitherses whispered.

‘Yes, and there’s an armed man over in those bushes. You see him?’

‘My old eyes aren’t as good as they used to be. He must be a sentinel, but is he a Spartan or a Taphian?’

‘He’s neither,’ Eperitus answered. ‘He’s an Ithacan.’

‘Then Odysseus has beaten us back,’ Halitherses said, getting to his feet. He raised his spear to catch the lookout’s attention, then stepped out into the open. Eperitus waved for the others to follow.

The soldier came out to meet them, his face gloomy. ‘You’d better go and see for yourselves,’ he said, pointing back towards the camp.

Eperitus felt a cold weight sink through him as if he had swallowed a stone. Halitherses gave him a look that revealed his own misgivings, and then with reluctant curiosity they pushed through the trees and walked down into the hollow. The others came after, bringing Arceisius with them.

Before them was a scene of devastation. Spartan bodies lay strewn everywhere, intermingled with bits of armour and broken weapons. The dust was stained with blood in many places, not just where the Spartans had fallen, and from that alone Eperitus knew they had killed some of their Taphian assailants before being overwhelmed. Odysseus and the others stood looking at the litter of corpses. At the sight of Halitherses and his men their spirits rose visibly, glad to see they were still alive, though they offered no words of greeting.