Ithaca (23 page)

“Idiot,” Polycaste said scornfully as we lay on the mountainside, the smell of pine resin mingling with the smoke of the fire on which we'd cooked our meal. It was the last night of our journey back from Sparta.

“Because she boasted about being beautiful?”

I heard the rustle of pine needles as she rolled over to look at me. “Because she needed help with the monster.”

I miss Polycaste. Not just her scorn—although I miss that too. I miss her courage, her quick anger, her boldness. I'm going to need all of those on Ithaca. I miss her directness, her instant judgments and fierce opinions. I'm not like her. Me, I'm always putting myself in other people's shoes, seeing both sides of an argument, understanding people then making excuses for them. My instinct is to overthink, to put things into words, to rationalize . . . just like I'm doing now, because, of course, it isn't Polycaste's courage or directness I miss, it's just
her
.

When I lean my weight on the steering oar, the polestar swings back into view from behind the dark patch of sail. It's the scornful twist of her mouth I miss; the quick gesture with
which she shakes back her hair; the ease with which, when she's washing her face in a mountain stream, she stoops to splash water up each bare arm. I miss the rustle of leaves as she turns over in her sleep. I miss her raucous, throaty laugh when something—usually some mistake on my part—amuses her.

She should be with me now, steering through the night. That's what we planned when we journeyed back from Sparta. But Nestor refused to let her go.

“We wish you good fortune in your return. I will give you a gold dish to place upon Odysseus's funeral pyre, as a mark of our old friendship . . . a
true
friendship—I cannot tell you how fond I was of your father, who hardly ever disagreed with my opinions. But then you must busy yourself with family matters . . . your mother . . . the government of Ithaca . . . decisions . . . Take it from one who has been making decisions for more decades than I choose to recall . . .”

But he did go on to recall them, of course—at length, burying the subject in mazy recollection, then pleading tiredness and going to bed. It wasn't hard to read between the lines. In Ithaca there's going to be a fight. He doesn't want his daughter caught up in it.

The morning I left, he came down to the beach to watch us board Mentor's ship. I took his hand as the waves hissed on the shingle behind us.

“You think I'm going to be killed,” I said.

Nestor just looked at me, blinked his rheumy eyes, then nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

I didn't answer. After a moment Nestor went on, “You think me callous. I'm a hundred and ten years old—do you know how many men I've seen killed? Good men, kind men, friends. Soon I'll die myself. I long for it.”

Polycaste raged on the terrace, but even she didn't dare disobey her father. For all that polish and old-world charm,
Nestor is quite as headstrong as his daughter. Polycaste and I said good-bye on the shore, alone, with a bear hug that slowly melted into something else. There's a kind of language in the way two bodies touch. A language in the squeeze of shoulder, chest and thigh, in the touch of fingers on each other's backs, in the strength of a grip that suddenly becomes soft and lasting. I felt a sudden heat beside me and knew Polycaste was crying. Then she pulled back, looking angrily away, like I'd done something wrong.

“You'll be fine,” she said curtly. “Come and see me when it's over.”

As I sailed out of the bay, I wondered if she was watching from the house. The empty space on the deck next to me felt more real than a presence. I could see the roof over the trees and the windows of the upper story. I nearly waved but stopped myself. If Polycaste was watching, she would have torn herself away from the window with a sneer.

I lean on the tiller again. A little wave clops against the hull. One of the sailors clears his throat and mutters in his sleep.

When I look back on it now, that short journey across the mountains feels like a lost paradise. If I'm killed—
when
I'm killed—at least I'll have had that. Nothing special was said or done, but we both felt a sense of freedom that seemed almost like an enchantment. The rest of the world—troubles, adults—might not have existed at all. Nothing existed except the two of us traveling through mountains that seemed to go on forever.

We left Sparta at dawn, with a faint mist still hanging over the little town and the mules stamping impatiently on the paved square outside the palace. Helen hadn't left her room since the day we arrived.

“Women's troubles,” Menelaus said and gave me a greasy wink. I ignored him. Our last few days together, Menelaus
had regained some of his bravado. He had taken us to see one of his vast warehouses, where rows of peasants were stacking harvested grain.

“My horses,” he said, pointing to the stables on one side. “See? They are the fastest horses in Greece. One day perhaps you will have faster horses, but first you will have to kill me.” He thought that was hilarious, slapped me on the back and roared with laughter.

On the day we left, though, he showed, just for a moment, a different side of himself—a glimpse of why the storytellers call Menelaus a great man.

“I've something for you,” he said while Polycaste was adjusting her stirrups, then he tugged me by the sleeve. A servant was waiting under the trees with something wrapped in white linen. Menelaus pulled off the covers. Inside was a sword. Not one of those glittering swords studded with jewels that hung in racks in his armory. It was short and tarnished, with nicks on the blade and a row of holes in the handle where gems had been pried out.

“I was going to give you gold,” Menelaus said, weighing the sword in his hand. He shrugged. “It impresses young people.” He looked at me suddenly, and it was as if he'd taken off a mask. I saw the pain in his face and how tired he was, but something else too—the resolution that had taken Menelaus to Troy to win back the woman he loved. “I don't think you would have been impressed. Do you know what this is? It's more valuable than anything in my house. It was Hector's sword.”

I couldn't hide my astonishment. Hector was the greatest of the Trojan fighters, perhaps the greatest of all fighters. He killed Achilles's friend Patroclus and was killed by Achilles in turn.

“We found it in his house in Troy. And we would never have captured Troy without your father. Here. Take it.” He gave me a tight smile. “You're going to need it.”

As we rode away, Polycaste said, “Well, at least we're done with that.”

I didn't say anything. I was thinking how time changed people, wondering what Menelaus was like at my age, before Helen humiliated him by eloping with another man; before the war and his brother's death; before he went into that private hell where he and Helen poisoned each other every moment of every day. The sword pressed through my saddlebag as we rode away.

Even so it was a relief when we reached the frontier. The soldiers waved us through, and we trotted past the barrier onto the rough forest track that wound upward into the mountains. Soon our journey dropped into a natural rhythm. We got up early, before it became too hot, slept through the afternoon, and went on again when the heat of the day began to fade. Along the way we climbed ridges from where we could see forests folding away from us and the grey heads of mountains in the distance. We dropped into valleys filled with the splash of water. We paused at streams, stopped to explore forgotten little shrines and the ruins of foresters' huts. By the time we made camp in the evening, the shadows would be gathering under trees and in the hollows of rocks, and the pools we camped by were full of mysterious depths. We fished out fat little mountain trout and filled our gourds at waterfalls. Sometimes we talked for hours before dropping asleep.

We hardly noticed that we were traveling slower and slower—instinctively, neither of us saying anything—until a journey that should have taken five days had stretched to a week.

I give the steering oar a tug. The shadows on the horizon have resolved into the shape of Nirito, Ithaca's mountain. I can see the offshore islet of Asteris to one side of it. Soon I'll be home. I can already picture the big house—the courtyard where the young men lie snoring, the shattered hall and empty storerooms; my mother sleeping upstairs.

My mother is the reason I'm coming home.

“What's the matter?” Polycaste asked one evening while we were unrolling blankets on piles of dry leaves against the wall of an abandoned sheep pen.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“I've been thinking about my mother.”

“You're worried?” Polycaste stopped still, her blanket half-folded.

“She's alone with them. I should have gone home sooner.”

“It's my fault.”

“No, mine.”

“We'll go quicker tomorrow.” Polycaste gave the blanket a shake and gave a harsh laugh. “We'll get up early. After all, there's no point putting it off.”

Putting it off. It's not like I ever forgot what was waiting for me in Ithaca. Every night I woke up after Polycaste had fallen asleep. I could hear the slow rise and fall of her breath. The Milky Way shimmered across the sky like a trail leading home. I knew that Ithaca meant the struggle with Antinous and the others. It meant a fight I couldn't win; it almost certainly meant death. I'd thought of not returning home. Even now, I can feel the temptation to throw my weight against the steering oar and turn the ship away from Ithaca. Perhaps Polycaste would come with me. I almost shook her awake, one night, to ask her. I could become a storyteller and tramp from tavern to tavern, house to house, telling stories about the war. I could go back to Sparta and ask to join Menelaus's retinue, or beg Nestor to let me stay in Pylos. Surely any chief would want Odysseus's son among his retainers? Or I could set off west, with Mentor and his crew, and found a colony. The sea's still full of empty islands. There are bays around its shores where no one lives but herdsmen and farmers, some of them still scratching the
earth with stone tools. I could forget Ithaca and join that drift westward, in search of new lands, untouched territories.

I can't, though. People elsewhere might welcome me, but they'd sneer behind my back. Polycaste would sneer at me. I'd sneer at myself. The road to Ithaca is my fate, as inevitable as time. What's waiting for me at home is part of my story.

There's more to it than that, though. It isn't just duty that's driving me toward Nirito, or shame at what the world would say if I fled. It's anger.

I felt the anger on the first night of our journey, when I thought of Ithaca. Felt it burn and knew at once that anger wasn't a new arrival; it had been there all my life. Anger at my lost childhood, anger at my father. Rage at the young men who've destroyed my birthright, fury at what they've done to my mother. After that I waited for Polycaste to go to sleep, then I sat on the mountainside each night and felt my anger burn. Felt it—and recognized it as an old friend I'd never acknowledged, something as vital to me as breath. Something that's been inside me since my first conscious thought, often concealed but always present, flaring and guttering like the flame of life itself.

I felt my anger surge the last night Polycaste taught me how to fight. Felt it and was grateful to it.

“Get your weight forward. No, on the balls of your feet . . . knees apart. You look like a frog . . .” She couldn't stop laughing. “All right, we'll try again . . . weight
forward
. . . better—well, a bit better, anyway . . . hold the sword loosely . . . now lunge . . . sorry, have I cut you?”

I said, “It's nothing,” and sucked my hand.

“What you did, you committed too far. Once you're moving, you can't turn, then you're a target. If we'd been really fighting, I would have disemboweled you.”

“Good,” I said and took up my stance again.

I tried to copy Polycaste, light on her feet, sword balanced loosely in one hand. She swayed. I thought she was lunging and leaped back. She laughed mockingly.

“Twitchy,” she said. “Try again. The whole thing is to keep your opponent guessing.” She flicked her sword out sideways and I jumped. This time she snorted with impatience. “Every time you jump, I could have you. Never commit until you know you've won. Never make a movement you can't control.
That's
better.” I had taken advantage of her talking to lunge forward. She calmly stepped aside and thumped the butt of her weapon down on my wrist. I rubbed my numb hand as I stooped to pick up my sword.

“It was still stupid, but at least you were thinking,” Polycaste said. “You committed again. Once you've thrown your weight for good and all, then you can't change direction. If your opponent's still on his feet, you're at his mercy.
Her
mercy. You have to
feint
. Go so far that your opponent thinks you're committed, but you aren't. They make their move, and that's when you twist and strike. Look, try again.”

So we tried again—and again, circling and lunging while the shadows deepened under the trees. Hector's sword felt warm in my hand, and familiar, like the anger throbbing quietly inside me. I watched the tip of Polycaste's sword. Saw it move sideways, trying to tempt me into a lunge; saw it waver. I flicked my own sword. I knew she would underestimate me. Polycaste thought I had fallen into her trap and raised her own sword to strike. Instead of lunging toward her, I whipped my blade upward, catching her weapon just below the hilt. There was a grind of metal on metal and Polycaste's sword flew away into the undergrowth. In the same movement I launched my weight against her, raising my sword until the bronze was pressed against her woolen jacket.

For a moment we stood close. I was panting hard. If it hadn't been Polycaste, I know I would have killed her. I could see her
skin up close, and the sweat beading on her cheeks. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth.