A Thousand Ships(48)

Eurylochus raced away from the palace, running through the woods without caution, desperate to reach you and tell of the dreadful things he had witnessed. When he found you, he begged you to leave your transformed comrades behind, to set sail with him and the men in your crew who still walked on two legs. But you decided to take matters into your own hands. You had lost too many men already to sacrifice twenty more.

You set off alone into the woods. So impetuous, Odysseus, which is not like you at all: you have always preferred to make meticulous plans. Perhaps you have changed, in the time we have been apart. Or perhaps you were, as the bard suggested, inspired by some god. As he tells it, you followed the route your comrades had taken, up the steep hill and down through the woodland towards the smoke you had seen the day before. A tall young man, handsome and proud of it, stepped out from behind a tree, and you shouted in alarm. He grabbed your arm.

‘The thing the gods like about you, Odysseus – well, most of the gods – is how determined you are. Even when the odds are against you. What chance do you have – one man, alone – against an enchantress like Circe?’

‘I must rescue my men,’ you replied. ‘Let me past.’

The young man held your arm a little tighter. ‘Your pigs, the last I heard. But if you accept my help, you will set sail with them again as men.’

‘Who are you?’ you said. You have never liked surprises.

The young man laughed and said, ‘I bring you a message from the gods. Does that not tell you the answer to your question?’

‘You’re Hermes.’

This moment rings truer than almost anything else the bards have sung, Odysseus. Who but you would assume that the gods had nothing better to do than assist you with whatever impossible scheme you had embroiled yourself in? And who but you would be right?

‘At your service,’ he laughed, and gave a little mocking bow. ‘Now listen to me, Odysseus. Your life depends upon it.’

He gave you a small black-rooted white flower, and told you to eat. The plant, which he called moly, would protect you from Circe’s concoctions and allow you to keep your human form. But that was only the beginning of his advice. After feeding you her poisoned food, Circe would try to strike you with her staff, and drive you into her pigsty, as she had done with your men. At that moment – and not before – Hermes told you to rush at her with sword drawn. Then, he said, she would try to seduce you, but you should force her to swear a binding oath by every god that she would leave you unharmed and release your men from their swinish prisons. Only then, Hermes said, should you agree to share her bed. You nodded, and repeated the instructions, expecting him to congratulate you on your excellent memory. But he had already disappeared, as gods are wont to do.

You swallowed the flower and followed his advice: entered the palace, ate the food, rushed at the witch with your sword drawn, forced her to swear not to harm you, and to release your men.

And it is at this point, Odysseus, that I am not quite clear what happened next. Obviously you would not have spent, as the bards have it, a year in her halls, living as her husband, for the excellent reason that you are my husband, and such behaviour would be beneath you. A long, long way beneath you.

And yet here we are, another year passed, no sign of you and your men.

Your wife,

Penelope





24


The Trojan Women


The women watched the Greeks approaching, led by a stocky, thick-chested man, scarred and tired beneath his soft grey eyes.

‘Madam,’ he said to Hecabe, bowing with an ironic smile, so it was impossible to judge whether he was being courteous or not. ‘You must be the queen of the late city of Troy.’

‘Is that what you’re calling it now?’ Hecabe asked. She did not return the bow, but stayed standing in front of the body of her son, determined to hide her fatigue.

‘Your city is dead, madam. You see its smoking remains.’ He waved his right hand in the direction of Troy, as though he were revealing an honoured guest from behind a curtain.

‘I see them.’ She stared at him, but he did not stare back. Rather his eyes scanned the faces of all the women in front of him. There was nothing avaricious in his expression; it was not the face of a man picking out his slaves.

‘Let us dispense with pleasantries,’ he said. ‘I am Odysseus, you are Hecabe.’

The women said nothing. This, then, was the man who had destroyed their city. Odysseus of the many wiles, plots, plans and schemes. This was the man who had thought to build the wooden horse. This was the man who had persuaded Sinon, his great friend, to wait behind as bait for the kind-hearted people of Troy, and trick them into thinking Odysseus wanted to make a human sacrifice of him. This was the man who had brought the war to such a sudden and disastrous end. What could they now say to him?

Not that Odysseus seemed to expect a response. He spoke quickly, the harsh Greek sounds softening on his lips.

‘And this was one of your sons, yes?’ He gestured at the body which lay next to his men’s booted feet.

‘My youngest,’ Hecabe said. ‘Polydorus.’

‘You sent him away?’ he asked. ‘When you feared Troy would fall?’

‘You would have done the same,’ she snapped.

‘I would.’ He nodded. ‘I would have sent my boy as far away as I could get him, if my home were besieged. Had I been in Priam’s place, I would have sent all my children away. Let other men’s sons fight a war I didn’t start and couldn’t win. His city was always going to be taken, it was only a question of how many of his subjects it took when it fell. And I only have one son, madam, and I haven’t seen him in ten long years.’