Ithaca Page 23

  I never reach my father, but someone else does. Everything seems to be moving at half speed. I see Antinous draw back the spear. I see his teeth bare in a snarl. But the blow doesn’t fall. Eurymachus has crossed the hall. Cool, expressionless, he drives his sword up beneath Antinous’s ribs. I watch the bronze disappear into Antinous’s soft body, as if Eurymachus has wrapped it in a curtain. For a moment there isn’t even any blood. Antinous just stands there, like a statue of a man holding a spear. Then he drops the spear and goes over sideways, blood spurting as Eurymachus wrenches out his sword.

  I shout my father’s name. Pull the hidden swords from their sacking, race across the hall. Rage is welling up inside me, elbowing fear aside. Eumaeus is by my father already, swinging a footstool to drive off the men who are already starting to press in.

  “Take this.”

  Eumaeus grips the sword I pass him, and, swapping his stool to the other hand, slashes at a man in blue who’s charging Odysseus with his sword at arm’s length. The man screams, clutching his severed arm, and goes down on his knees as Eumaeus crushes the stool down on his head. Eurymachus is already stabbing and parrying. My father is still whimpering on the ground. I drop a sword at his feet and turn to face our enemies. Four of us against a horde of men who are moving toward the corner like sharks, sensing blood in the water.

  “All right?” Eurymachus touches my shoulder and grins briefly.

  No time to answer. A man charges me, eyes squinting in vicious concentration. I let his weight carry him on, step back, and thrust my blade into his belly. There’s no time to think about what I’ve just done. Another man is already feinting at me. Watch their feet, Polycaste said. I see the man’s weight roll forward onto his toes—the blow’s coming. As it arrives, I twist aside and bring my blade down on the attacker’s neck. I’m not scared anymore. This morning, yes. Right now, though, I’m feeling cold, pure exhilaration—the exhilaration of a battle that’s been waiting for me all my life. I can do this. I can fight and survive, kill and turn to face whatever danger comes next.

  Peisander, one of Antinous’s friends, hurls himself at me, lifting his sword in both hands. He was one of the men who dressed me as a girl and made me sing to them. I dodge the swinging sword and stab him sharply in the groin. Peisander screams, and as he goes down, I kick out at his face, feeling my foot jar against bone. Then I’m feinting again as someone else slashes at me. I parry and slash back, but miss. Eurymachus’s sword cuts in from one side, though, and blood flowers from the man’s ear. I step back, take a deep breath, then dance forward again as a spear flickers past me. I don’t even see who’s holding it but bring the hilt of my sword down hard on someone’s hand and kick out again. Suddenly the exhilaration is draining out of me. This is hard. My thoughts were surfing ahead of each danger in the beginning, but now the threats are coming thick and fast, from every direction. I can’t foresee them all. And my sword’s getting heavier. How can I keep lifting it? Suddenly I’m tired, and know it. I start noticing other things, stupid things. A swallow darting into the hall through the open doorway, circling the beams in a flash of red and blue and disappearing through the opening above the hearth. I lower my sword.

  Luckily I’m not the only one who’s tired. There’s a general lull in the fighting, as if by agreement. Eurymachus rests his hands on his knees, panting. The others stand back, forming a ring around us. For the moment we just watch each other, chests heaving. It isn’t the usual exchange of glances, though—it’s the gaze of men who intend to kill one another. I become aware of rain still drumming down on the courtyard and hearth, as if the heavens are unburdening themselves of all their fury. It feels like the end of the world. A deluge to drown everything. Skies melting until water laps over the harbor wall, creeps up streets and alleys, reclaims the mountainside and washes over the peak of Nirito. My mother’s loom will float upon the waves. Her pictures weren’t meaningless after all. They showed this: chaos.

  A man slashes at me, and dully I hit back. The battle starts again, but untidily. I can feel the heaviness in my arm. When another man thrusts a spear at my side, I’m too slow in responding and feel a burning pain along my rib. How much longer can I go on? I can sense Eumaeus’s weariness as well. The old man is grunting as he fights, his breath coming in hoarse, rasping pants. Eurymachus’s hair is black with sweat, and there’s a crimson bloodstain on his shoulder. He was fighting with sword and dagger to start with, one in each hand, but now he’s holding his dagger awkwardly.

  Like water built up behind a dam, the men in front of us seem aware of their own weight, their power to overwhelm. They thrust forward, pressing us back. Eurymachus gives a sudden gasp of pain but keeps on fighting. All of a sudden I’m treading on something soft. I’m standing right over my father. There’s nowhere farther to retreat.

  Odysseus moves.

  I feel him move beneath my feet. At first I think he’s simply cowering farther back and step over him. When my father moves again, it makes me angry, for some reason. All I want is to fight, now—fight until some blade slips through my guard and it’s finished. The sooner the better, so I can drop this weight in my hand, lie down, and quietly sleep. When my father pushes me to one side, I push back furiously, and it’s only then I realize that I’m shoving against an immovable strength.

  Odysseus has risen to his feet, like a bear uncoiling itself from winter sleep. A spear jabs at him. He grabs its hilt and tears it out of the fighter’s hands. I hear a roar. Somehow Odysseus has a sword in his hands. He grips me by the shoulder and shoves me aside, pushing me against the wall so hard that for a moment I’m winded. Pressed against the wall, I hear Odysseus howl again. And watch my father move across the hall. Move—he doesn’t walk or stride; he just moves. The sword blade flickers around him like lightning around a tall pine tree. With great sweeps of the weapon he clears a path before him. Men clutch at him, screaming, and he tosses them aside. Blood drips from his wrist. His progress becomes a dance. He rocks from side to side, yelling and slashing, as if he’s cutting not men’s bodies but nets that seek to ensnare him, cutting himself free, turning with a roar to scatter the cowering men around him.

  I do what I can to keep up. I’m still winded, but I follow Odysseus with Eurymachus and Eumaeus at my side. Sweat fills my eyes. The others are beaten now and know it. Most are going down on their knees, begging for mercy, but Odysseus ignores them. The fighting lust has taken hold of him. Melanthius, the cook, is pushed against him, babbling a plea for forgiveness. Odysseus slashes his throat with a single movement. Only when they realize they have no hope of mercy do the last men stand to fight. Odysseus crushes them as he moves forward. They retreat against the hearth with the rain wetting their backs, a dozen of them standing on the bloodstained bodies of their friends. Odysseus closes in for the kill.

  As he moves in, I sense something’s wrong. Why does Eurymachus push me aside to take my place at Odysseus’s elbow? I’m too out of breath to complain, but when I look at Eurymachus, there’s something odd in his pose. My mind’s too tired to work out what. Eurymachus is still jabbing at our enemies, but he keeps glancing at Odysseus, to his right.

  Watch their feet, Polycaste taught me. Watch their feet, and you’ll know where they’re going to stab next. Mechanically I look down at Eurymachus’s feet. Twisted to one side, weight on the toes, ready for the kill. But to kill whom?

  Then I know. Eurymachus doesn’t even draw back his sword. The blow’s disguised; no one in the hall will ever see who dealt it. But I know what Eurymachus is planning to do. “A good family,” my father said. “You can trust Eurymachus.” But I never did, despite all that friendliness, all the good humor. I knew all along Eurymachus was false.

  As Eurymachus’s knife sweeps upward toward Odysseus’s heart, I throw myself in front of my father. I feel a blow against my side but stay on my feet. Clutching Eurymachus by the throat, I bring my sword up, through soft clothing and flesh, and feel blood flow hotly over my hand.

  Suddenly E
urymachus and I aren’t standing together. I’m carrying him, supporting his weight. He smiles at me. His smile is as charming as ever. He’s still smiling as the sense melts from his gaze and he slides down my chest to his knees.

  I’m kneeling too. I’m not sure why. The edge of the hearth touches my cheek, and I put my hand on it. The stone’s wet with rain. I’m clutching my own side. I see Eumaeus’s face and feel the old man tug at my hand, but I don’t let him pull it away. I don’t want to, though I can’t remember why it’s so important to keep it there. Eumaeus turns me over, and I sit back against the hearth, looking up at the roof. Suddenly the roof seems too far away, or maybe too close—I’m not sure which. I can see my father now, sitting on the ground. There’s no one else in the hall—no one alive.

  “Easy.” I see Eumaeus’s lips move before I hear the words—or perhaps I just imagined that. The lips move again.

  “You’re hurt.” There’s a pain in my side. I stop resisting Eumaeus and let him drag my hand away. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to do. I watch Odysseus drop his sword and pass a hand over his face like he’s washing it. When he takes his hand away, his face is smeared with blood. That makes me want to laugh. I want to tell my father to wash his face, but the words seem too big for my mouth and my tongue’s too dry, so I just nod, hoping he’ll understand what I mean.

  Then I see my mother, and the sight of her brings another wave of pain to my side, along with a wash of confused noise: women screaming in the distance and the drumming of rain on the roof. I’d forgotten it was raining. Penelope’s wearing white. But as she walks slowly across the hall, the hem of her gown, trailing on the floor, becomes soaked in crimson, as if it’s drawing blood up from the earth.

  She doesn’t seem to notice. I watch her drop to a crouch, not beside me but next to Odysseus. She takes his face in both hands. I watch my father’s eyes slowly come into focus as he looks up at her. I don’t see her lips move, but I can hear the words she whispers to him.

  “My husband,” she says softly. “My husband.”

  The sky is clear, the rain is gone, the heat has returned, scorching the houses of the town and plunging the benches under the plane tree into deep shadow. Sitting back in the chair they’ve made for me, I can feel my eyes closing. My father told me I’d feel faint. I’m no longer in danger, but I’ll be sick and faint for a week, at least, from loss of blood.

  My father’s talking now. It feels like he’s been talking forever. He’s winning the town over, steering them toward him—and he’s loving every moment of it.

  So are they. If I half open my eyes, I can see them lining the benches, eyes fixed on Odysseus as he tells his tales. Such tales. A one-eyed giant who ate sailors. A monster called Scylla who plucked men from the deck and devoured them. The witch Calypso, who kept him captive in her palace for five years.

  I’ve learned a lot more about my father in the last twenty-four hours.

  The morning after the fight, I woke in my bedroom to the smell of burning. They were fumigating the big house, purging it, and cleaning out the smell of death. When I lifted my head to look through the open door, I could see a brazier burning on the landing. Servants went from room to room, scattering dried lavender. Smoke billowed from the courtyard, where they were burning the tents. In the afternoon they carried me out to the garden. A pall of smoke hung over the harbor. They’d fired the pyre built for Odysseus and were burning the bodies of the young men. The smoke hung over the town in the windless air, choking the streets and dropping oily black soot on the sand.

  That wasn’t all Odysseus did to purify his house. He killed the servants who had helped the intruders. I watched a group of boys, dressed only in their shirts, led out to the orchard with wrists bound. I wasn’t strong enough to protest. Later I watched Melantho, my mother’s maid, killed in the courtyard. She’d slept with two or three of the young men, Agelaus and Eurymachus among them. Odysseus ordered a rope to be slung between the galleries, and Melantho was brought out. She was struggling, and kept struggling as they looped the rope around her neck and tautened it. She went on struggling, toes scribbling frenzied messages in the dust, until her body sagged suddenly and Odysseus let the rope fall slack.

  I can still smell dead fire as I lie under the plane tree. It’s a rottenness in the air like the sour smell of old meat. I wonder how long it’ll take to wash away. I wonder how long it’ll be before anything feels normal again. But perhaps I’m too tired to wonder anything. I feel soaked in exhaustion, like a rag dipped in water. I let my head drop back against the chair and look up into the canopy of leaves.

  This morning I watched Odysseus bargain with the parents of the young men who died—those parents who live on the island, that is. Others will arrive from the mainland in the next few weeks. The parents demanded blood money, threatened feuds. Odysseus was as masterful as a lawyer, arguing, persuading, cajoling, until hands were shaken, backs slapped, and the threat of an island riven by blood feuds was lifted. When the other families arrive, he’ll deal with them just as skillfuly. He can do that, just like he can lead, and fight, and tell stories.

  Which he’s doing now. He’s describing Troy, its walls rising sheer from the plain like cliffs, and the Greek camp on the beach. Listening to him, you can almost hear the blare of the Trojan trumpets, see the banners fluttering as the soldiers come out to fight. He describes the wooden horse and Troy’s last night. When he talks of their departure for home, he chokes up, and Penelope has to reach out a hand to comfort him.

  Before the meeting, the villagers came into the square hesitantly. I saw knots of them gathering outside the tavern, talking in hushed voices. But as soon as Odysseus began to speak, they were his. Leaning forward in their chairs as he talked. Women covering their mouths as he described the men he had led and lost. It was as if he cast a spell over them. One thing I can see—he needs them more than they need him. Odysseus doesn’t just want a majority to support him as chief. He needs them to leap to their feet, to pledge him everything. He needs them to love him—and they will.

  I close my eyes. My head’s aching, as if it’s carrying an odd weight. I managed to walk most of the way down to the square, but Eumaeus and Eurycleia had to help me the last few steps and maneuver me into this cushion-lined chair under the tree. Eurymachus’s sword cut deep—another inch and I wouldn’t be here now. The night after the fight, I woke up screaming. When I came to myself, Eurycleia was sitting over me, moistening my forehead with a cool cloth. She dipped the cloth in a bowl of water and wrung it out. The dribble of water in the bowl reminded me of when my mother cooled me during hot nights when I was a child.

  I watch my mother stroke Odysseus’s hand. I’ve barely seen her since the fight, but I’ve heard her laughter coiling along the corridor like a girl’s. It’s been years since I heard my mother laugh. I’ve seen her holding Odysseus’s hand as we dine together, and the shy smile she gives him when he drains his cup and leads her upstairs. Penelope has her husband back, and I’ve never seen her look so young, or so alive.

  Am I jealous? I suppose so. The truth is, my father’s come home and my mother doesn’t need me anymore. And it’s not just her I’ve lost. It’s my home. My father’s voice fills the hall now. His laugh echoes along the corridors. The house isn’t mine anymore. Odysseus has returned to Ithaca, and suddenly this island I call home has become too small.

  Odysseus has visited me often. He sits on the end of my bed, hands on his knees, talking about my future.

  “You fought well. You must see some proper fighting now. A brawl around the hearth is nothing to boast of. I’ll send a message to Menelaus. He’ll find an army for you to fight in. You’ll travel to Egypt or to Crete. You must feel the quiver of a chariot under your legs and the pull on the reins as horses charge into a line of archers. You must see ships landing on a beach and a town in flames.”

  When I don’t say anything, he looks down at me, frowning, puzzled. “You need to rest,” he says. “You’ll be better afte
r a week’s rest.”

  I’ve spent most of the time thinking about Polycaste. About our journey across the mountains—the owls hooting in the twilight as our fire burned low, the cold sheen of dew as we woke to morning mists. I’ve thought of how we talked as we sat by mountain streams, watching the spray flick up from rocks and the rainbows fanned by the sunlight. There is another way. Polycaste and I both know that.

  I can go on learning to fight, but I don’t want to. I could choose my father’s world if I wanted, but I don’t want it. There was a flame of anger inside me, but the anger’s burned out.

  Yesterday morning, I had them carry me down to Mentor’s house. He was sitting outside with his sons, eyes closed in the sunlight. His sons welcomed me. Their wives ran indoors for jugs of wine and trays of bread while Mentor’s wife piled cushions on a soft chair.

  “He hasn’t been the same since they beat him,” she whispers. “He’s tired. Don’t make him talk too long.”

  I put my hand on Mentor’s, and he opened his eyes. “I’m going to leave.”

  He nodded, tongue moistening his dry lips. “Good . . . good.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Somewhere in the west. We’ll find an island, start a colony. Others have done it.”

  Mentor nodded again and closed his eyes. “Good,” he repeated. “Good.”

  His sons helped me gather the rest of our crew. Together, painfully, we went from house to house. I wasn’t sure they’d accept me as leader, but no one objected. Eumaeus is coming—I was surprised by that. But he’s had enough of fighting, enough of war. He wants a quiet place where he can raise his pigs in peace and watch the sun set over the sea each evening. We’ve got half the crew who sailed with us to Pylos. My half sister’s coming, and her mother too. They were never accepted in the town; they want a new home. There are farmers from the mountain who’ve pledged to sign up, and boys with too many brothers who want new seas to fish.