Ithaca Page 17
“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.
Then she shrugged unconcernedly and pushed me off. “You could be good, you know,” she said. “You’re quick and you think. You might end up better than me, one day.”
That was praise, for her.
“What’s it like in a real fight?” I asked as we packed the next morning. It was our last day of travel. The sea lay ahead.
Polycaste looked at me in astonishment, then laughed her raucous laugh. “How would I know?” she asked. “I’ve hardly ever left Pylos before. I’m a girl.”
But we both found out the same evening.
As dusk fell, we dropped down into the little town by the shore where we’d originally planned to pick up a guide. Looking down from above, we could see a few lights winking among the dark rooftops, and smell fires. The sea spread out black toward the south.
“There’s Pylos,” Polycaste said, pointing. “We might as well stay in the town tonight. We can stay with that guide.”
But the house where we’d asked for him before was closed up. We rattled the shutters and called, but no one answered, and there was no smoke from the chimney.
“There was that tavern,” Polycaste said.
“Or we could go on and camp.”
“What’s the matter, are you scared?”
“No,” I said.
We retraced our steps to the tavern. No one was sitting outside, but the alleyway was filled with the reek of grilled fish, and from behind the shutters we could hear a murmur of voices. Polycaste opened the door. Inside there was a fug of smoke from a charcoal brazier in one corner. Through it, we could just make out a table at the back and some upturned barrels with men sitting around them. The place stank of stale wine and the oily fish sizzling on the brazier. A man in a dirty apron stood by it, sweat pouring down his face as he prodded the fish with a fork.
Everyone stared at us as we came in. The conversation died away.
Polycaste walked confidently forward into the room. “We need somewhere to spend the night,” she said in her loud, clear voice.
“I’ll give you somewhere to spend the night,” muttered one of the men. The others laughed. I put my hand on the hilt of my sword. Instinct. Straightaway I wished I hadn’t—I knew what it meant to men like these.
Polycaste looked scornfully at them. “I’m Polycaste, the daughter of Nestor, chief of Pylos,” she said.
“This isn’t Pylos,” said the man by the brazier, who I assumed was the tavern-keeper. “Nestor don’t rule here.”
Suddenly the atmosphere was wrong. The men were veterans. There were four of them. One had a splint strapped to his leg; another, a knotted sleeve where his left arm should have been; and a third, a coat made from the belt of a bear. I knew they were dangerous. They might have been less skillful at fighting than the young men at home on Ithaca, but they were just as savage. Their leader had a thick black beard. The left-hand side of his face was covered with a clumsy tattoo, a sea monster.
I stepped forward, letting go of my sword. “All we want is somewhere safe to spend the night,” I said as reasonably as I could. I kept my eyes on the tavern-keeper. “Maybe you’ve got a stable at the back. We can sleep there.”
“What’s in the bag?” asked the tattooed man. He was talking to Polycaste, who had her saddlebag slung over her shoulder.
“Our things.” She spoke bravely, but I could tell she was nervous.
“Open it up, then. Let’s see what you’ve got.” He glanced at his friends, who laughed.
“No.” I had to draw a line, otherwise the men would push us back and back until we were helpless—I’d seen Antinous do that. I glanced around the room. The tavern-keeper had turned his back and was pretending to cook the fish. Two other men, in the far corner, had shuffled their stools around to look the other way. We were on our own.
I had to think fast. Our best chance was that the men would think us too-easy prey. They’d never expect a girl to fight. Four against one, they’d reckon, and me only a boy. They’d come for me first, thinking me the only threat, then have Polycaste to themselves. I don’t know exactly what happened next. Fury frothed up in me. We were going to fight, and I wanted to fight. I’d had enough of negotiating, compromising, hiding. I wanted to hurt them.
Suddenly my mind left behind its first instinct of fear, almost as if it wasn’t part of me, and began working smoothly, as if I could see how things were going to unfold. There was an alcove by the door, just enough room for me to take one step back. The saddlebag on my left arm masked my sword—Hector’s sword—and the thought gave me a surge of confidence. I could swing the saddlebag into their faces and draw my sword in the same motion. Swing at them hard enough, and I could use the momentum to knock a second man off balance.
They had to move first. That had been Polycaste’s lesson. Keep them guessing. Make them commit.
I took a step sideways. “Look,” I said. “There’s nothing valuable in the bags. We’re travelers. We’re asking for hospitality.” Talking distracted them while I took up position. I weighed the saddlebag in my left hand. “If you want them, you’ll have to take them,” I said.
The men came at me in a rush. There was no science in it. As they surged forward, I swung the bag at the man on my right, sending him blundering into the man next to him. At the same time I pulled out Hector’s sword. Instead of lunging, I let the third man, the leader, run onto it with his own weight. The shock jarred my arm. There was a sickening moment as I felt the sword enter his body, but I kept my arm steady. The man grunted in surprise. For a second I seemed to be holding him up. His breath stank, filling my nostrils. His face, the tattoed monster rippling across it, seemed pressed right against mine, with the brown eyes first surprised, then suddenly glazed. But I didn’t have time to think about that. My mind was still working fast. I looked right, at the man with the empty sleeve, who was holding a short, bent dagger. Before he could strike at me, though, he twisted in shock and agony. Polycaste had stabbed him from the side, and in the stroke slashed at the second man, who was beginning to recover his balance. I shoved the leader’s body at him and circled into the room, shoulder to shoulder with Polycaste. It was only then I registered the wrench as I’d pulled my sword from the body. When I glanced down at it, the first hand’s breadth was glistening red.
There was a moment’s shocked silence. The one-armed man was groaning on the floor, clutching his side. The other two, unharmed, stood with their backs to the door, panting. They looked down in shock at their leader’s body, and then up at us. Then, with a glance at each other, they were gone. The door banged open. Their footsteps receded down the alleyway.
The tavern-keeper turned his fish, which hissed fat into the brazier. Only then did one of the men in the corner look around.
“They’ll be back,” he said without expression and turned back to his cards.
We led our mules quickly down the street. There was still enough light in the sky to see the beach, the flat, dark sea, and the distant promontory of Pylos. There were no lights in the town behind us. We followed the beach westward, then cut inland up a narrow gully choked with weeds and prickly pear. At the end of it we found a hollow under a rock face, where we tore out weeds to make space for a camp. We didn’t light a fire.
“Are you all right?” Polycaste asked. They were the first words either of us had spoken since leaving the tavern.
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“Of course I’m all right,” I snapped. “Why?”
“Because you’re shaking.”
“I’m not.” I sat down on the hard ground and hugged myself. I didn’t know what I was feeling. “I killed someone.”
“He was going to kill you.” Polycaste sat down next to me and put her arm around my shoulders. “You were brilliant. I didn’t know what to do until the fighting started. You didn’t stop thinking.”
“The man you killed?”
“In the stories . . . in battles between fighters . . . they don’t stop to think about killing . . . They just do it . . .” I was shivering. “He was a person,” I said.
“A bad person.”
“Does that make any difference?”
“I don’t know.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Polycaste nudged me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made us go in.”
“It doesn’t matter.” It did. I just didn’t want her to feel bad. “I said I needed to learn how to fight . . .” I could still see the man’s startled eyes staring right into mine, then suddenly losing . . . what? Like a candle snuffed out, or the flame dying on a log; like the last edge of the sun vanishing behind the horizon; like the emptiness after a thunderclap. Gone.
“Anyway,” Polycaste said more briskly, “you didn’t have a choice.” She stood up and went to the head of the gully. The bushes were just shadows now. The first stars were appearing overhead. “One of us ought to stay up and keep watch. We’ll take it in turns.”
I took the first watch. I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I sat at the end of the track, wrapped in my blanket. Polycaste was soon asleep. To take my mind off it, I tried to picture Ithaca, my mother, Eurycleia, the nurse. But all I could think of was the man’s dirty face with the tattoo of the sea monster on it and the sudden weight, so completely dead, as he slumped against me. Suddenly I found myself shaking, with tears pouring down my cheeks. I was ashamed of myself for crying. I hated what I’d done. I was confused. But at the same time, somehow, it felt as if I’d appeased that anger I’d discovered in myself, that sulky rage, like a stubborn and ill-tempered fire smoldering on an altar. I’d fed it, stilled it. I lived in a world where men fought. And I would fight too.