Ithaca Page 18

  As I’ll fight when I reach Ithaca, even though I know I’ve little hope of surviving. Not for the first time I wonder how the confrontation on Ithaca will start. I’ll make a formal announcement of my father’s death, and then what? I know what it will mean to Antinous and the others. No risk of the husband’s return; no need to pretend Ithaca doesn’t need a new chief because the old one’s still alive. So—two prizes to snatch. One point in my favor: from the moment I declare my father dead, the young men are going to be at war with each other. But that’s as far as the good news goes. Come tomorrow morning I’ll be their rival for chief of Ithaca, and I’ll be in the way when it comes to snatching Penelope. Best dead, on both counts.

  Factions will form. There’s a fight brewing between Antinous and Eurymachus, although they’ve managed to work together until now. There’s even a chance I can get Eurymachus to support me and eliminate Antinous. But only for a price: my support in marrying Penelope; my support in making him chief of Ithaca. I can pull that off if I want—Odysseus’s son will still have some power in a town meeting—but I won’t. My mother’s freedom and the freedom of our island—they’re the two things that matter most to me. I won’t sacrifice them just to save my own life. That’s why I’m steering through the night toward Ithaca, looking up at the stars and thinking I’ll never know peace like this again. It was bred into me, the fight that’s coming. The glory of the fighter’s caste, and its end, crushed in one corner of the great hall with another man exulting over my body.

  They’ll attack me sooner rather than later. I’m guessing they won’t want a public fight—people might run to help me. More likely an ambush somewhere quiet, or an accident, something that would cover their tracks from the charge of killing their host. A fall from the cliff, or a drowning at sea, the most common islander’s death of all. A drowning at sea.

  I peer ahead into the night. The dark masses of land ahead are starting to take shape. The deserted islet of Asteris, half a mile offshore, has pulled clear of Nirito’s bulk. We’re close enough to make out the wink of fires on shore. The light on the hillside must be from home, in the big house—maybe it’s the brushwood brazier that keeps the guards warm at night. The light below must come from the little shack where fishermen smoke mullet and sardines on a beach littered with fish bones and sawn logs. For a moment, remembering childhood visits, I picture the gush of hot smoke when its rickety wooden door is opened and the fish hanging in silver rows inside. They had to build it under the cliff because everyone in town objected to the stench.

  Over to the left there’s another fire I can’t place. It looks as if it’s on the islet of Asteris, but no one’s ever lived on Asteris, which is just a rocky mound with a few trees and enough sand to beach a ship. Perhaps a ship has pulled up there—but why would anyone land on Asteris with the harbor of Ithaca just around the point? Unless they were keeping a watch out to the south. But who would be looking out to the south? And why can’t they keep watch from the house itself, which commands views all over the Ionian Sea? Unless they’re trying to intercept a ship coming from the south. The only ships from the south, though, are merchants and traders.

  And me.

  Suddenly I’m wide awake, fingers tense on the steering oar. A ship from the south. A drowning at sea. I try to stop my mind racing ahead. I’ve nothing to go on but one fire on Asteris. The rest might be just imagination—fear, nights awake thinking through exactly this, even the delayed shock of the fight in the tavern. I make myself think calmly back through it all, trying to make allowance for the night, for being tired, for fear. Same result. There’s a fire burning where I’ve never seen one in my life.

  “Mentor!” I whisper his name, even though we’re still a mile from shore. It takes a moment to rouse him. “There’s a fire on Asteris.”

  “I don’t see anything.” His voice is still thick with sleep.

  “Down by the water. There must be people there. A ship.” My mind is moving fast now. “Wake the crew.” I don’t stop to think that Mentor’s thirty years older than me, but I’m giving the orders. “Get them to the oars without making a noise. Get the sail down. Quickly.”

  “Maybe they’re fishermen,” Mentor says.

  I could waste an hour telling the old man why they aren’t fishermen. There isn’t time. I’m already pulling the steering oar toward me, guiding the ship away from Asteris. The sail gives a great flap and the stars swing behind it. Grumbling, Mentor begins to kick the crew awake. I keep my eyes on the distant fire as they haul the sail down, get out oars, and, in silence, begin to pull away to the east. An oar splashes.

  “Quietly.”

  Whether they’re harmless fishermen, pirates, or men bent on murder, the only sensible thing to do is steer clear and swing out around the outlying rocks. Maybe that way we can slip into the harbor unseen.

  “I can see it now.” Mentor’s voice.

  “What do you think?”

  “Fishermen.”

  “Why would they camp there?”

  “Maybe they landed earlier and left a fire burning.”

  “Maybe.”

  There was a pause. “Better safe,” Mentor agrees grudgingly. “Mind the rocks, though.”

  Everyone knows the rocks off Ithaca’s harbor’s mouth. I saw a ship wrecked on them when I was a child. Eurycleia took me up to the cliff, where a line of Ithacans were bracing themselves against the southerly gale, shielding their eyes from the sun. Looking down, I saw the remains of a trading ship splayed across the rocks like an insect crushed by a thumbnail against a windowsill. Breakers tugged at the wreckage, burying it in foam, then drawing back to reveal a broken mast, submerged gunwales, and the rock’s teeth glistening through the smashed deck like the points of a knife. Tiny black figures clung to the mast’s stump. From up on the cliff we could see them clearly, but there was nothing anyone could do to help—no fishing boat could go out in a storm like that. We watched the waves pluck figures off the deck one by one, until a massive breaker buried the whole wreck in foam and licked it clean.

  “Ship,” someone says. I look over my shoulder. I can’t see anything at first, just darkness and the wink of the fire on Asteris. Then the fire is blocked out by something, reappears, vanishes again. There’s something moving through the darkness between us and the islet.

  “Comin’ right for us,” the sailor says.

  I can hear the fear in his voice. That fear could kill us all if it turns into panic. “Probably nothing,” I say as calmly as I can. “We’ll make for the harbor anyway.”

  I can feel the men pulling harder. They can all sense the danger out there on the black sea. I try to calculate. The rocks are halfway between Asteris and the harbor point. We’re better placed for the harbor, but they’ll be faster than us—much faster—and it won’t be dark for long. I glance eastward. The sky is beginning to turn pale. Dawn means light behind us, making us easy to spot. So no chance of making the harbor first.

  If they catch me on board, they’ll kill us all. Fishermen will find our ship wrecked on the rocks later this morning. No bodies, but everyone will know it’s Mentor’s ship. On the other hand, if they catch Mentor with no sign of me, they’ll probably let him pass. So there’s only one solution.

  I touch Mentor on the arm. “I’m going to swim ashore.”

  “No, Telemachus!”

  “I have to.”

  “It’s too far. They’ll see you getting into the water.”

  I don’t answer for a moment. It’s farther than I’ve ever swum before. But I’m not going to be drowned at sea like an unwanted puppy. The thought makes anger surge up in me again. “The rocks will hide me.”

  I kick off my sandals and tie them to my belt. Stooping, I pull my leather bag out from under one of the rowing thwarts and rummage in it, throwing out clothes until it holds nothing but Hector’s sword.

  “What are you doing?”

  Instead of answering, I stare back into the blackness behind us. There’s no sign of the pursuing
ship. For a moment I wonder whether there even was a ship. Then, from somewhere well behind and to our left, I hear the splash of an oar. Everyone hears it. Someone in the bow mutters, and the sailors quicken their pace, trying to heave their ship’s ungainly hull faster through the water.

  “They’re waiting for me,” I tell Mentor quietly. “So long as they don’t find me, you’ll be safe. Make the harbor if you can. At least get close enough so people can hear you shout. Tell them I was never on board.” I raise my voice. The whole crew has to hear this. “Tell them you left me behind in Pylos. Do you understand? If they don’t find me, the rest of you will come to no harm.”

  “What are you going to do?” The old man’s voice is shaking.

  “Head for the rocks. We’ll slip between them, and that’s when I’ll go overboard. I’ll be all right.” Easy to sound cheerful in the dark, when no one can see your face. “I’ll swim to the cove below Eumaeus’s hut.”

  “Rocks!”

  I scramble forward across the rowing benches and cling to the bow, listening. The sea is pitch black; only the sky holds a little light. Then I hear the wash of a wave slapping against something solid and the suck of water as it falls away. I wish I could be more certain of the direction. These are the rocks sailors try to avoid at all costs, and we’re steering right for them in complete darkness. Again I hear the pitch and hiss of waves. I look down to judge our speed, and suddenly I can see the darkness isn’t quite so thick. There are ripples spreading out from our stem. When I look up, the land ahead is starting to take shape. Suddenly I see the rock, not where I expected but almost abreast of us.

  “Sharp left!” But Mentor is already heaving on the steering oar to drag the ship around. Glancing astern, I see a black shape emerging from the night, a warship, sleek and low, its oars, like the legs of a water insect, lifting it smoothly toward us. There must be twenty men on board. I look the other way. The channel between the rocks is no wider than a ship’s length, but enough for us to pass through.

  “Don’t forget, I was never on board. Let Mentor do the talking.” For a moment I wonder whether it’s right to leave them behind. But they’re safer without me—far safer. I clasp Mentor’s hand, glance at the warship, oars rising and falling in unison, and then, as the rock’s wicked crown hides it from view, I slip into the water.

  It’s cold. Paralyzingly cold in the deep Ionian, as if the cold wants to hug me and drag me down. For a moment I can’t think. The weight of my bag tugs at my shoulders. I have to force myself to kick out toward the rock, a sharp outline across the brightening sky, but when I reach it there doesn’t seem anywhere to hold on. A low wave lifts me closer. I kick hard on stone and gasp with pain. Blood warms my foot, and suddenly I think of sharks. The black depths of the sea spread out around me. There’s no point giving in to such thoughts. Fear will kill me more surely than any shark. I reach out one hand, grip a pinnacle of slippery rock, and look around.

  Mentor’s ship is already curving eastward beyond the rocks. Daylight is coming on fast—I can see the old man crouching at the oar. And here’s the warship already. Deciding against the passage through the rocks, its helmsman has chosen to cut his prey off on the far side. Twelve oars rise and fall in unison—a trained crew. And in the stern, braced against the oar, is the unmistakable, burly figure of Antinous.

  Antinous, who goaded me, ridiculed me, filled my dreams with fear. Whatever happens in the hours and days ahead, I’ll do all I can to settle my account with Antinous.

  Oily seawater washes around me. Looking up, I see the stars vanishing one by one as the day gathers strength. Perseus is gone, and then Cassiopeia. For a moment longer I think I can see Andromeda winking at me; then the sky stretches blankly overhead.

  I let go of the rock and begin to swim.

  When I was a child, we called Eumaeus’s house the farm, but it’s not much more than a hut, really, built against a bank, with a dirty yard sprawling around it and pigpens on the far side.

  I know Eumaeus is in by the smoke from the chimney. I don’t knock, though. Instead, I go up to the single window and listen for a moment, which is how I learn Eumaeus has a prisoner.

  “Yer ain’t goin’ anywhere.” The farmer’s unmistakable, gruff voice. Peering in, I can see his visitor sitting disconsolately on a stool by the fire. An old man. The dogs are on either side of him, neck muscles tensed.

  “I need . . .”

  “Yer already took a bleedin’ leak, yer been leakin’ like a bleedin’ pipe. If yer can’t hold it in, yer can piss in yer bleedin’ shoes.”

  The stranger whimpers.

  “Or a bucket,” Eumaeus adds, “but yer can wash it out yerself.”

  “I assure you . . .” the stranger begins. Well-spoken.

  “Oh, ’e assures me all right, ’e assures me all ’e likes, but I ain’t assured, am I? I don’t trust yer . . . I don’t trust yer no more’n I trust the pig with black ears as ate Spot’s puppy.”

  “I’m not a Trojan spy,” the stranger says solemnly.

  From the window I can see the look of triumph on Eumaeus’s face. He leans forward and shakes a finger in the stranger’s face. “What is jus’ what you would say,” he breathes cunningly, “if you was a Trojan spy.”

  Time to go in. One of the dogs stands up. The other barks.

  “Someone comin’,” Eumaeus says, and gives an oath as I open the door.

  “Telemachus!” he exclaims, limping over and clutching both my hands, shaking them like he wants to pull them off, then raising each in turn to his lips. “I ain’t expectin’ yer. No one ain’t expectin’ yer. Yer taller.”

  “I’ve only been away three weeks.”

  “Then yer bigger. Yer something. Yer looks different.” He frowns. “Yer wet, anyways. Come in.”

  “Who’s your guest, Eumaeus?”

  “Guest?” Eumaeus looks contemptuously at his visitor and spits on the floor. “What ’e’s only a bleedin’ tramp as talks bollocks, an’ now . . .” He raises his voice angrily. “Now looks at ’im bubberin’ and snivellin’, what’s wrong wiv ’im now?”

  It’s true, the guest is weeping as he looks at me, hunched over on his stool, rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his gown. I take a closer look at him. A powerful man—or powerful once—and probably good-looking with it. But it seems like life has been hard on him. His back is bent, and his face is scarred and weather-beaten, his hair streaked with grey. A traveler or sailor, maybe a mercenary. A dangerous man once, perhaps, but not anymore.

  The stranger wipes his eyes again and looks at me, still without standing. His eyes are fiercely blue and somehow distant. “You’re Telemachus?” he asks in a hoarse voice.

  “I am. And your name?”

  “’E’s a blasted liar’s what ’e is,” Eumaeus puts in fiercely. “What ’e comes ’ere, askin’ to be took in, an’ it’s all lies.”

  “How do you know he’s a liar?”

  “’Cause I got eyes in my ’ead, an’ ears to hear wiv. ‘I tramps many miles,’ ’e says. Look at them shoes, ’e ain’t tramped many mile in them. ‘I comes in a Lastragonian ship,’ ’e says. Well, I seed the ship’e come in, it were Phaeacian, what I seed their pink sail, greasy buggers. Bollocks, every word of it, an’ ’e sits there eatin’ my pork,” the old man finished indignantly.

  I take another look at the visitor. Unarmed. Not threatening. “Who are you?”

  “That’s what I wants to know,” Eumaeus interrupts. “’Oo the blazes is’e, an’ ’oo sends ’im? One o’ them, ain’t ’e? ‘I met Odysseus. I got a message from Odysseus.’”

  I shouldn’t be so shocked, but nonetheless I feel a surge of anger. I don’t need this. Not now, not ever. My father’s dead. I don’t need any more games.

  “Get me some wine,” I tell Eumaeus. I try to keep my voice calm.

  While he draws it from his old goatskin, I sit down slowly on the stool, recovering strength. I don’t look at the stranger. For some reason I’m feeling a mad, enraged urge to pull
out Hector’s sword and kill him now. Instead, I ignore him.

  “I went to Sparta,” I tell Eumaeus. “There was no news. I made a decision.”

  “What’s that?” Eumaeus has pulled the spit from the fire and started slicing thick hunks of pork.

  “Odysseus is dead.” I hear the clatter as Eumaeus drops his knife. “No one has any news of him. No one’s seen him since the day he left Troy. Tonight I’ll declare Odysseus dead. Tomorrow we’ll raise a pyre and read the funeral rites.”

  Saying it out loud is harder than I expected. I’ve slammed the door shut on sixteen years of dreaming my father will return. I’m not a child anymore. Eumaeus comes slowly over to the table and sits down next to me. He covers my hand with his huge, calloused paw. Neither of us speaks.

  “No . . .” The stranger’s voice is a low moan.

  Eumaeus reaches across and slaps him hard, backhand, across the face. The stranger cringes, hiding his face behind his hands. “’E says ’is father’s dead,” Eumaeus growls. “’E don’t needs none o’ yourn bollocks now.”

  I bite into the thick slab of bread Eumaeus has handed me. It’s dry as dust, impossible to chew. “Is my mother safe?”

  “She’ll be better now you’re ’ome. What are you doin’ ’ere, Telemachus? Why didn’t you come in the ’arbor?”

  “They were waiting to ambush me on Asteris, Antinous and twenty others. I had to swim for it. Mentor took the ship in.”

  “Yer can ’ide ’ere if yer needs.”

  “No. I have to see Penelope. I have to tell her about Odysseus.”

  “Odysseus,” the stranger whispers.

  I spin around in fury, but something stops me from striking him. I can see the red mark where Eumaeus hit him.

  He gets up, stooped. Comes over and stands in front of me, standing too close so I can see the deep blue in his eyes, smell the stink of his breath.