Glyn Iliffe - King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

Having seen the first Taphians fall, Eperitus was also keen to press the attack on the wall and take his spear to the elusive enemy. They were almost up to the gates now and he was ready to break into a run, when suddenly he saw the body of Halitherses lying in the grass. At the sight of his grey hair and the distinctive, old-fashioned armour Eperitus felt the hot tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, provoked to sadness by the loss of his good friend. And then Halitherses moved.

It was only the slightest twitch of an outstretched arm, but overwhelmed to discover the guard captain was alive Eperitus ran from the Ithacan front rank towards where he lay, determined to bring him safely away from the foot of the walls. But before the Taphian archers could shoot him down, their rain of arrows suddenly stopped and they slipped back into the courtyard. Eperitus looked back at Arceisius, who shook his head in reply.

Then the answer came. They heard the rasping sound of the bar being lifted from the back of the great gates and saw the doors fold outward, ready to unleash the Taphian counter-attack.

As the gates were slammed shut, Odysseus and his companions were hurriedly escorted into the palace by the scar-faced Taphian and four others. There was no time to bind their wrists, but with two guards in front of them and the sword points of the others pressed painfully into their backs, the Ithacans knew any attempt to escape would be futile and swiftly dealt with. The commotion of battle was already starting behind them as they entered the torch-lit passageway that skirted the great hall.

They marched rapidly towards the steps leading up to the royal quarters, but were stopped by the sudden appearance of Mentes from a side passage, his sword held menacingly at his side. When Diocles the Spartan joined him, the guards knew something was wrong.

‘What do you think you’re doing, Mentes?’ asked the leading Taphian. ‘And why isn’t this prisoner with the others?’

Without a word, Mentes plunged his sword into the man’s gut, killing him instantly. Diocles, though unarmed, crumpled the other man with a single blow from his large fist. Five more Spartans joined them from the side passage; two of them picked up the weapons of the fallen men and, with Mentes at their head, rushed at the remaining Taphians. Odysseus, Mentor and Antiphus twisted away from their captors as their rescuers drove them back down the corridor, their swords clashing angrily against each other.

‘Mentes, you traitor,’ hissed the scar-faced warrior.

Mentes replied with a thrust of his sword. His opponent parried the hasty lunge and laid the younger man’s guard open, but in the narrow passage was unable to bring his own weapon up to find the exposed torso. In desperation he resorted to punching Mentes in the stomach, winding him. Mentes slumped against the wall, but before his former comrade could finish him one of the armed Spartans stepped in and skewered the Taphian through the groin. He fell to the ground, screaming with the agony of the mortal wound.

Though the two remaining guards had been pushed back, they showed no signs of wanting to run to the safety of the courtyard. Instead, they stood shoulder to shoulder and raised the points of their swords, smiling grimly at the thought of a fight to the death. Odysseus picked up their dying comrade’s weapon, ready to answer their challenge, but before he could advance on the waiting Taphians Mentes stepped between them and faced his countrymen.

‘Join us,’ he said. ‘We came here to serve Eupeithes, not Polytherses. There will be no dishonour in laying down your arms and refusing to fight, and tomorrow we can return to our beloved homeland.’

The men looked at him with scorn in their eyes. They were warriors, proud men who were ready to die in battle; they had also come to prefer Polytherses’s brutal style of leadership to the soft indecision of Eupeithes, and had every intention of fighting for the new king of Ithaca. One of them spat into the dirt at Mentes’s feet.

Odysseus wasted no time in rushing at them and severing the sword arm of one with a single blow. Shocked, he fell backwards clutching at the gushing wound, and Odysseus finished him with a stab through the throat. The other man was engaged by a Spartan and quickly slain, the victor savouring revenge for the massacre of his comrades the day before. The scar-faced warrior, still groaning, was quickly dispatched, but Mentes insisted they spare the life of the man Diocles had knocked unconscious.

As they tied his hands and feet with belts taken from his dead comrades, Odysseus explained the desperate situation at the gates to the others.

‘It troubles me to fight against my own countrymen,’ Mentes said, gagging the prisoner with a strip of cloth torn from a bloody cloak. ‘But, equally, I hate Polytherses and the way he is putting good soldiers to ill use. If I help you open the gates, maybe the gods will bring some of them to their senses and they will join with us against our true enemy.’

Odysseus thought of the two guards they had just slain and doubted whether many, if any, of the Taphians would switch allegiance. They were too proud, even for Greeks. But he was nevertheless glad of Mentes’s continuing loyalty, and knew if he could help them open the gates there would still be a slim chance of victory. Something else concerned him, though, and he could no longer restrain himself.

‘Diocles, where is Penelope? I know she was with you when the camp was ambushed.’

‘She was captured with us, but we were separated the moment they brought us inside the palace walls.’

‘Then I have no choice,’ Odysseus announced. ‘Diocles, I want you and your men to open the gate. Antiphus and Mentes will go with you. They won’t be expecting an attack from within the palace so you’ll have the advantage of surprise, but you still have to open the gates and hold them until Halitherses can reach you. When he does, then you must do what you can to defeat the Taphians inside the courtyard.

‘As for Mentor and I, we will search the palace for Penelope. Any victory will be a hollow one for me if my wife is harmed, so I must be sure of her safety. Then, if the new king is anywhere to be found, I’ll make sure of him too. But first I must find where Eupeithes is being kept.’

‘He was imprisoned with us in a storeroom, down there,’ said Diocles, pointing to the passageway from which they had emerged earlier. ‘Have pity on him, Odysseus.’

‘May the gods be with you,’ was Odysseus’s only response, then with Mentor he went to find the man who had brought so much trouble to Ithaca.

The corridor was lit by a single torch, which Odysseus freed from its holder and took with him into the storeroom. For a moment they could see nothing but large clay jars amidst the flickering shadows cast by the flame. Then, as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they distinguished a man in the far corner, his legs sprawled out before him. They stepped closer and held the torch up, causing the man to squirm away from the light, cowering and whimpering as he covered his eyes with his forearm.

It was Eupeithes, though only just. His once proudly fattened physique was diminished through starvation, and his previously clean-shaven, fleshy cheeks were drawn and covered in a scrawny beard. So this was the man who had deposed Laertes, and for fear of whom Odysseus had taken the palace guard across the Peloponnese to Sparta. He lowered the torch.

‘Let’s go.’

‘And leave him?’ asked Mentor, shocked. ‘You’ve wanted to kill this rat for the past half-year; surely you aren’t going to turn your back on him now? He deserves death, Odysseus!’