King of Ithaca (20 page)

They made camp away from the road on an outcrop of the eastern mountains. It was similar to their resting place of the previous night, with steep slopes facing the sea and a crown of olive trees upon its summit. They made as large a fire as they dared, which hardly merited the title, and Antiphus sang them an ancient tale from Ithacan legend. It was not a story Eperitus had ever heard in Alybas, as it told of sea gods tormenting shipbound mortals and keeping them from their homes, but it was familiar to Odysseus’s men. They nodded in sad recognition of each element or in anticipation of the next, and the subject of the cursed wanderer struck their mood. But it was also a short song, the sort that can be easily learned and which men will sing to their comrades when they have no bard, and so it was soon the turn of others to sing. They all knew the tales that were shared because they had heard them so many times before and the words had been embroidered into the fabric of their minds. Even Mentor, who was still tired and sore from his wounds, gave them a song in his deep and musical voice.

Then it was the turn of Odysseus. The songs that had come before had gently drawn them away from their self-centred, individual patterns of thought, their insignificant anxieties about food, sleep and tomorrow, and knitted them slowly together into a single entity that fed on words, unconsciously transforming them into a smooth succession of shared emotions which in turn became the heartbeat that unified them. When Odysseus spoke his smooth voice mastered them entirely, reached into their mood and gripped them, leading them, lifting them. He did not sing, but spoke the words of his tale, clearly and rhythmically, mingling their thoughts and emotions into a stream that flowed directly into him and back out again to them. He told them of the gods and the ancient things that preceded them, of battles fought before man’s creation that tore up the mountain tops and burned the oceans, and when, eventually, he stopped telling the tale their minds did not stop hearing it, could not stop, but poured back over it and around it until the night breeze tugged at their cloaks and pinched their skin, slowly clawing them back to the world of the hilltop, encircled by the age-old trees and observed by a raven sky filled with stars.

One by one they turned away into their blankets and tried to sleep, pondering the great world that they were but a small fragment of, not needing to comprehend it or their part in it, simply accepting once again their own mortality. And as he saw his true self, a brittle, finite thing, Eperitus did not sink resigned under a sense of fatalism but felt himself lifted, his spirit rising to claim the infinitesimal spark of life that the gods had granted him. He was such a throwaway thing of no importance, and yet he existed and would make that existence worthwhile.

They were woken before dawn by the smell of smoke and the crackle of fire.

Eperitus lifted his head from his rolled-up cloak and at first thought his dream had taken a bizarre twist. Then he saw Damastor running through the camp and shouting.

‘Fire! The trees have caught light! Wake up!’

Eperitus leapt to his feet and looked about with a horrified realization. Two of the trees that circled the camp were now blazing brightly, forming a raging beacon against the fading darkness. The others stumbled from their blankets, bleary-eyed and dishevelled. Eperitus saw Halitherses amongst them and ran to him.

‘We must find some water,’ he said urgently. ‘If Polybus is anywhere nearby he’s bound to see this.’

‘It’s too late for that, lad,’ Halitherses said, pointing towards the raging inferno. ‘See how the flames are spreading from tree to tree? Even if there was a river here and we had something other than our helmets to fetch the water in, we could never douse these flames. I only pray to the gods that there are no Taphians within sight of this.’

Eperitus remained anxious to do something, but the truth was that the fire would be visible to any watching eyes for miles around, and when dawn came the smoke trail would be obvious to all. So they watched helplessly with the heat drying their eyes and warming their faces, and wondered whether matters could get worse. Then Damastor appeared at his side and seized his arm.

‘Eperitus, where are the mules? They were picketed over there last night.’

He looked at the place where the beasts had been when he fell asleep, but they were not there. They must have broken free, panicked by the flames, and bolted into the night. With them they had taken the last of their provisions and, what was worse, the gifts for Helen.

Odysseus came running towards them. ‘Get some men together and search for the mules, Damastor,’ he ordered, clearly angry with the guardsman. ‘Halitherses, see that the escort is ready to march before sun-up. I want to get away from here as soon as possible and continue to Messene.’

‘How could this have happened?’ Eperitus asked him. ‘And why didn’t the sentry see anything?’

‘Damastor was asleep again,’ the prince replied, tight-lipped. ‘And as for the blaze, it was probably an ember from the fire, caught by the night breeze.’

‘Sabotage is a more likely explanation,’ Eperitus replied, but Odysseus was already hastening away to issue more orders to his men.

Damastor’s search for the mules was unsuccessful and they were forced to leave with nothing but the food they had in their pouches. Soon afterwards it began to drizzle, and they cursed their bad luck that it had not rained the night before. At least then the trees would have been too wet to catch light, and they would not have needed to leave the road and cut across country to avoid pursuit.

Nobody spoke. They followed a route that kept them out of sight of the road. It took them through valleys and along the reverse slopes of hills, through woods and along riverbeds so that they were not seen by unwelcome eyes. Without the road their going was slow and Odysseus would occasionally climb a hill to check their position in relation to the road south. By afternoon the men were tired, being generally unfit and unconditioned to long marches. They also began to find that they could no longer continue south and remain invisible to anyone using the road.

Odysseus, Halitherses and Eperitus made their way up to high ground and saw that the road had now split in two. One route followed the coast as it bent outwards and then plunged south again; the other curved away from the coast and turned inland, heading east through the mountains.

‘Which way now?’ Eperitus asked.

‘Using the coastal road will take us days,’ Odysseus answered. ‘It circumvents the southern mountains, then angles back up to reach Messene. I’ve sailed around that cape many times and know it would be a long journey on foot. But if we take the road through this valley,’ he added, pointing east, ‘it should lead us to the northern end of a broad plain. From there it forks again: southwest to Messene, or east over the Taygetus Mountains to Sparta. Polybus would expect us to head through the valley, but he wouldn’t anticipate us doubling back to Messene. I think we should take the risk and hope to lose him there, if indeed he is following us. What do you say?’

‘I wouldn’t want to follow the coastal road and lose the cover of these hills,’ Halitherses said, stroking his beard and looking across at the open stretch between their hiding place and the junction below. ‘At least if we head east we can keep ourselves concealed a while longer. There’s still the open plain to come, where we’ll have to take to the road again for a time, but we can deal with that when it comes to it.’

By last light, after pursuing another skulking course through the foothills and woods that skirted the main road, they finally emerged from the other end of the valley. There before them lay the open plain of Messene. Only the northernmost reaches were visible – the remainder obscured by a last spur of the mountains to their right – but they could see that it was a broad and fertile place. There were fields and orchards, and quiet villages that lay dozing beneath the shadows of the hills. And there, just beyond the rocky spur, they could see the road splitting again. One branch continued south-east towards the Taygetus Mountains and eventually Sparta, whilst the other veered south to Messene.

They increased their pace to a run as Odysseus led them out of hiding and into the vulnerable open spaces about the road. The sun had set, but until they passed the rocky spur it was still light enough for them to be seen from the steep hillsides to the west. Eperitus was at the back of the group, and as he reached the fork in the road he noticed something shining in the dirt. He paused as he reached the object, and looked down to see a dagger in the damp mud, the blade pointing south in the direction they were running.

‘Come on, Eperitus,’ Odysseus shouted. ‘This is no place to rest.’

Shamed by the insinuation that he was tired, Eperitus sprinted to catch up with the rest of the men. Whoever had dropped the dagger would have to do without it.

They did not push on towards Messene that evening. Visitors in the night are rarely made welcome in a town, so they made camp in the foothills of the western mountains. It was a grim and cheerless assembly, without the warmth and light of a fire and with nothing but the meagre rations in their pouches to provide a meal. The watch was tripled and nobody enjoyed an unbroken night’s sleep.

Woken by a grey light distilling through his eyelids, Eperitus opened them to see a cold and cloudy sky overhead. All night the winter chill had been eating away at his flesh and burrowing into his bones, leaving him stiff and awkward as he stood and began shaking the blood back into his limbs. They ate a cold and lifeless breakfast of bread with strips of dried fish, washed down with icy water. Amongst the whole group only Odysseus had any cheer, which he tried to spread by reminding his men they were only a morning’s march from Messene. As for Eperitus, the prospect of finding Athena’s temple by late morning did not encourage him. He had no appetite to face a creature akin to that which protected the Pythoness. But he also knew that to win glory he must face his fears and overcome them.

They took to the road again and marched in a double file. Eperitus walked beside Antiphus and for a while they shared their knowledge of Sparta, swapping tales they had heard of its wealth and the splendour of its palace. But after a while Antiphus began pointing out the signs left by what appeared to be a large group of travellers: recently trampled mud, crusts of bread or olive stones, and even a leather sandal-strap tossed away at the side of the road. Then, as the road slipped between two steep hills on its route south, he called out to Odysseus and pointed out a clump of bushes at the side of the road.

‘Somebody’s ahead of us, my lord. These bushes have been hacked with a sword, and that means they’re armed. I think we should send out flanking scouts, just in case Polybus and his Taphians have overtaken us in the night.’

Odysseus shook his head and pointed to the crests of the slopes on either side of them. ‘It’s a little bit late now for that, I think.’

They turned to see both sides of the narrow gulley lined with tall, long-haired men. They held spears almost twice their own height and some of them had bows at the ready, arrows primed and pointing directly at them.

Chapter Twelve

A
MBUSH AND
P
URSUIT

The Taphians surrounded them like a ring of hunters, but Eperitus felt no fear. He believed in the promise of the oracle and knew his time to die had not yet come. He also trusted in the years of training he had received at the hands of his father and grandfather, both of whom had expected him to one day become captain of the palace guard at Alybas. Since boyhood they had worked on his physical strength, his fighting technique and his reactions, and the fruit of their efforts had pleased them both. As Eperitus crouched behind his ox-hide shield and looked up at the fearsome mercenaries, he knew that his aim with a spear was deadly and his skill with sword and shield second to none.

He touched the flower Ctymene had given him, which he wore in his belt, and prayed to Athena for protection. The Ithacans were surrounded on both sides and whichever way they faced their backs were exposed to the archers on either slope. Their inexperience had allowed them to walk into a trap, and he knew they should have been more cautious. Like the others, he had not expected the Taphians to follow them to Messene, let alone pass them in the night and set up an ambush, but the more he thought about it the more his mind focused on the dagger in the mud. He felt sure it was a sign, left by the same person who had torched the olive trees. Clearly, Koronos was not the only traitor.

The fighting, when it commenced, would be quick and bloody. But as they waited for the first arrow to be loosed, the soldiers around him filled with anticipation and fear, Eperitus looked at the tall men on the hillsides and felt only excitement at the thought of pitting his fighting skills against theirs. His imagination tasted the prospects for glory, whilst feverishly planning how to turn the trap. But even if Odysseus’s men were able to escape the well-laid ambush – and he saw no way out other than to hack themselves free – they would leave most of their number dead behind them. Their foes outnumbered them and had the advantage of archers and the high ground. They could pick the Ithacans off at their leisure, forcing them to take the fight up the rocky slopes to the Taphians, by which time the enemy arrows would have reduced them to half their own number.