King of Ithaca (10 page)

Eperitus twisted over and threw his arms about her legs in supplication. ‘Please, goddess, no! I only came to eavesdrop on Odysseus because he lied to me. It never crossed my mind to spy on you, your ladyship. Forgive me and I’ll honour you all my days; I promise to hold you closer to my heart than any of the other Olympians.’

‘That is only what I deserve,’ she said in a harsh tone. Then, with a degree of softness, she prodded him away from her legs with her spear. ‘Let go now, Eperitus. Let go and stand up.’

Reluctantly he released her legs and got to his feet, patting the dust from his cloak. He took a step back and lowered his head so as not to look directly at the goddess.

‘And if I told you to follow Odysseus to the ends of the earth, would you honour my wish?’

‘Yes, Mistress Athena,’ he answered. ‘My fate is already tied up with Odysseus. And I’m also sworn to follow the will of the gods. You can be certain I’ll do as you say.’

‘Good! Be true to your word and no ill will befall you, though I also offer you this warning: beware the charms of women. You have no experience with those vile creatures, Eperitus, and a wrong choice could be perilous. Odysseus, my parting advice for you is to be wary of your friends. And don’t forget my temple at Messene.’

In an instant she was gone. Eperitus waved his hand through the air where she had stood, but there was nothing.

Though the party was awake before dawn and did not tarry, it took them most of the next morning to reach the port where the Ithacans’ ship was harboured. The journey was uneventful as they descended towards the great gulf of water Eperitus had seen the evening before, though it was strenuous under the merciless leadership of Odysseus and Halitherses, who insisted on a quick pace with few stops. Despite this, their newest recruit was pleased to find that the other warriors had welcomed his inclusion in their ranks, albeit with coldness from Mentor.

As they marched Eperitus became aware of a strange smell in the air, which was neither pleasant nor offensive, simply alien to his nostrils. He also saw great white birds circling in the sky above them, the likes of which he had never witnessed until his arrival at Pythia. They had long, hooked beaks and wing spans large enough to cast shadows over the soldiers as they flew. He watched them riding the wind, swooping and rising in the bright sunlight, and felt an unfamiliar pang stir in his heart. He felt as if he was on the threshold of the new world he longed for, that soon now he would be able to shake off the rags of his past life and for the first time discover who he really was. He was turning a corner that would put Alybas and his father out of sight, and would set him on the path to his promised glory, where the bonds of the old world would no longer hold any power over him.

A transformation of spirit overcame his companions, too. They no longer seemed weary, nor stooped by the weight of their arms. Instead, their sombre mood had been replaced by a chattiness and excitement that Eperitus had not before seen in them. Their conversation was no longer a string of muttered curses or an exchange of complaints, as it had been only the day before, but turned now to the subject of Ithaca. They spoke eagerly of their wives and families, home cooking and wine shared by their own hearths. They were also talking of the sea.

Already Eperitus had seen tantalizing glimpses of this mysterious entity in the great body of water that was visible from the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Last night it had shone like silver in the moonlight, and this morning it was a dark mass upon whose surface the sunlight had shattered itself into a thousand pieces. But he knew that even this was only a channel that led to the sea, little more than the least twig on a great tree.

He lost sight of the shimmering waters as the party reached the plain below Pythia. As they followed the course of a boulder-strewn river that grew steadily wider and noisier they passed several pilgrims on their way to the oracle, escorted by local peasants acting as guides. The first sign that they were approaching a town was a group of girls washing clothing on the other side of the river. Shortly afterwards they began to pass huts and a few larger dwellings. Gradually the path became a road, populated by water-carrying women and their grubby-faced children, who looked blankly at the strangers as they filed past. A goatherd called a cheery greeting as he took his flock to drink at the river, but nobody else spoke to them.

Before long they were in the town itself, and followed the river, to the harbour. The great spread of water that Eperitus had seen at a distance now lay hammered out before him, a dark, shining mass that heaved quietly beneath the shore wind. This was not the sea – he could see land on all sides – but Antiphus told him it was an entrance to the gulf that split northern Greece from the Peloponnese, and which ultimately led out to the oceans of the world.

Flocks of seagulls screeched and cawed as they wheeled in wide circles over the town. Crowds of them were focused above a boat moored beside a wooden platform that had been built to reach out into the water. Eperitus watched in fascination as the crew passed wooden crates down to people on the platform, who then took them back to the shore.

‘What’s the matter, Eperitus? Never seen fishermen before?’

Antiphus joined him where he had lagged behind the group. The Ithacan was in a carefree mood now that he was homeward-bound, and gave the young warrior a dig in the ribs with his elbow. Eperitus looked back at the fishermen as they passed more crates out of their boat, watching keenly as they tossed shining objects into the water, where gulls darted into the waves and plucked them out again.

‘No,’ he confessed. ‘Not in Alybas. My home is many days’ march from the sea.’

‘Then you’ve never even seen the sea?’ Antiphus asked, shaking his head and trying to imagine a life without sight of the ocean waves every day.

Before now Eperitus’s only experience of the sea had come through the fantastic stories of bards, or the tales of the grizzled adventurers who now and then passed through Alybas. They told tales of a great bottomless lake with no end, filled with gold and silver fish that the people who lived by the sea ate. They described oceans as blue as the sky, or at other times as dark as wine, where the restless surface moved like the wind over a field of barley. Sometimes, they said, Poseidon would make the waters rise up in great walls to smash the ships that rode upon them, and because of this the sea people built their ships of such strength and size that they could withstand the anger of the god. There were small boats in Alybas, of course, but the few natives who had ever seen the sea declared authoritatively that ships were as large as two or three houses put together, and some could hold over a hundred men.

‘Are the creatures of the sea really made of silver and gold?’

‘Silver and gold?’ Antiphus laughed. ‘If they were, Ithaca would be the richest country in the world. Well, country boy, what are you waiting for? Come and find out for yourself

With that he strolled towards the fishermen. Eperitus, keen to see a fish of silver, followed close behind.

They made camp by the shore that evening, Odysseus having decided to wait until the next morning to make the voyage back to Ithaca. His ship was not as big as Eperitus’s imagination had hoped – just as he had learned that sea fish were not made of silver or gold – but she was a beautiful craft and he could barely wait to board her. He helped make a fire on the beach while others prepared the food or fetched fresh water (to his surprise, they informed him that sea water could not be drunk), and as he collected wood his mind and eyes were on the vessel. It was sunset and the calm waters were ablaze, glowing orange-red like new bronze as the black silhouette of the ship lay at anchor amidst the gentle, fiery waves. Her hull was low and wide, with great wooden barbs rising at each end and a prow that would cut through waves like a spear point. The tall mast stood forward of the centre of the boat, carrying a furled sail on its cross-spar and strung about by a web of ropes.

Besides Odysseus and his ten companions, a further eight men had been left to guard the ship. They welcomed the newcomer from Alybas with genuine friendship, despite being greatly saddened by the loss of one of their comrades. They demanded the story of the fight and the visit to the Pythoness, and as his men gathered to eat and share wine Odysseus gave them the tale in full, with much embellishment and ornamentation. For a man with so uncouth an appearance, the prince’s voice was as smooth and as sweet as honey. His words fell like flakes of snow in the mountains at wintertime, gentle and enchanting and irresistible. The men listened intently and without interruption, their minds filled with the images that Odysseus created before them. They listened as if under a spell until, eventually, the tale was done and the teller leaned back with a smile and sipped his wine.

At the men’s request, Eperitus described his part in the battle and the encounter with Python. The wine had driven away his inhibitions, and even Mentor’s scowls could not prevent him from telling them the predictions of the Pythoness for his future. It pleased him that his audience were impressed enough to ask Halitherses and Antiphus whether it was true; but when Eperitus offered to tell them of the oracle’s prophecy for Odysseus, Halitherses raised his hand.

‘Enough, Eperitus. That’s for Odysseus to reveal to the council, and is best left unspoken until then.’

After that the conversation died down, and soon the men were laying out their cloaks and blankets in the sand. Eperitus lay awake for another hour, listening to the snores of his companions and looking up at the stars that pierced the darkness above. His thoughts lingered in the streets and palace of Alybas for a while, remembering the evil events that had overtaken the town and driven him away. But the dark loneliness of exile had been mercifully short and already the gods were sending him to Ithaca. He tried to picture his new home, piecing together an image from the fragments of information he had heard around the fire earlier – a sunny island with woods and springs, villages and farms; populated by a happy people, and yet threatened with rebellion. And the whole surrounded by the endlessly shifting sea. He turned his eyes to the ship – a black, formless shape now in the dark waters of the estuary – and soon fell asleep, dreaming of an armada of such vessels carrying an army of men too vast to be numbered.

Chapter Six

T
HE
K
EROSIA

Ithaca was the hub of a group of larger islands that lay north, west and south of it. It was shaped like two leather bags knotted together: both halves were hilly and wooded and did not suit crops, though corn and vines were grown there in small quantities; the southern reach had only a few farms and was mainly given to pasture land for goats, while the northern half was where most of the islanders lived, and where Laertes’s palace was situated.

At first light that morning the ship’s sail was set, and with the wind filling its belly the vessel slipped up the gulf that led out to the Ionian Sea. Damastor had volunteered to teach Eperitus some of the basic elements of seacraft, but spent most of his time asking unwelcome questions about his past and the visit to the oracle. He seemed especially keen to learn what had been said to Odysseus, but when it became clear that Eperitus would not reveal anything of significance – either about his reasons for leaving Alybas or the words of the Pythoness – the probing stopped and Damastor began to talk instead of his wife and young child. As they passed the final headland some hours later the crew could see the islands of their homeland dominating the horizon before them, but when they reached open waters the wind blew up and they were forced into a flurry of action. Damastor left his pupil to look on helplessly as he joined his comrades at the leather ropes.

The men who had accompanied Odysseus to the oracle were as much at home on the sea as they were on land, if not more so, and rapidly set the dolphin-motifed sail to take full advantage of the new wind. The ship surged forward over the furious waves at a pace Eperitus had never imagined possible on water, and before long was rounding the southern tip of Ithaca and cruising into the narrow channel that separated it from its much larger neighbour, Samos.