Ithaca (9 page)

Nestor stops and clears his throat. “My daughter Polycaste will accompany you. I won't deny I have my own reasons for sending a mission to Sparta.” He smiles wearily. “If you are truly as astute as your father, you'll guess them soon enough. Pylos is small and peaceful. Sparta is large and hungry for war. Friendship alone prevents the Atreids from gobbling us up. I have not visited Menelaus since the war, and I should have done. I am too old to travel now, but Polycaste can go in my place. She cannot cross the mountains without a companion. There—you will be doing your father's old friend a favor by going.”

He blinks like a little white owl. I've tired him—it's time I went. But before I can leave, Nestor lays a soft white hand on my wrist. It seems to weigh nothing. It's almost a bond to my missing father—these feathery fingers that once clasped Odysseus's hand.

“Odysseus was my friend, Telemachus.” He sounds oddly husky. “So many battles together. So many arguments in the Greek council. I can hear his voice now . . .” His eyes half close as he remembers the voice I've never heard. For a moment I think he's fallen into a reverie. When Nestor speaks again, his voice is so low I have to lean closer to hear him. “I can't offer you anything more than advice, Telemachus. But my prayers will be with you. Good luck.”

P
olycaste and I set off the next day on two mules, with a third to carry our baggage. The plan is to travel to the edge of Nestor's realm and pick up a guide to lead us across the mountains to Sparta. Mentor will stay in Pylos with Nestor. All this is decreed by the old chief, who allows no alternatives. I wonder why he is so insistent that we travel alone. Maybe it is a test of some sort—for Polycaste, or me, or both of us.

On the first day we travel through gentle hills covered with olive groves and little farms. This is Nestor's country, and everyone knows Polycaste. Children run after us when we ride through villages. A farmer draws us water from his well in an
ancient leather bucket. When the sun is at its hottest, we shelter for an hour or two in the shadow of an outcrop of rock, but we don't talk much. To be honest, I'm scared of Polycaste—scared of her caustic tongue and quick boredom. In the evening we drop down to the shore of a bay with some fishermen's cottages and a little tavern clustered around a beach lined with fishing boats. We kick off our shoes and paddle in the soft, silky water while the mules are led away to a shed at the back of the village. On the far side of the bay are mountains, the highest I've ever seen, way higher than Mount Nirito at home. When we look to the right, past a headland, we can make out open sea; to the left, where the bay ends, is the smoke of a little town.

“That town's where we're going,” Polycaste says. “Over there”—she points out to sea—“is Tenaros. The mountains run all the way back along the peninsula and inland. We have to cross them to get to Sparta.”

“Have you ever been to the town?”

She shakes her head. “It's outside my father's territory.”

We eat fish grilled over olive branches on the beach and sleep on piles of nets in a low shed that reeks of fish oil. Its rafters are hung with spare oars, masts, and rolled-up sails. Another day of travel brings us to the outskirts of the town.

A rough ditch signals the boundary. Beyond it, the track runs across beaten earth marked with the outlines of houses. It feels like the town used to be bigger. Starved-looking children stare at us from shelters made of bent branches, but they seem too apathetic to chase after us or even beg for food. Our mules pick their way cautiously through heaps of debris and the ashes of old fires. The track dips down, then climbs over leveled banks of flattened earth.

“There used to be walls,” Polycaste says. “Ages ago. My father told me.”

“What happened?”

“It was sacked.”

“Who by?”

“People in boats. A long time ago. Trojans, maybe.” She shrugs. “Enemies.”

From outside a low, unpainted cottage, an old man watches us approach. Scrawny chickens peck at the dust under his bench. A dog lies at his feet, its head on one side. It bares its teeth as we halt but seems too exhausted even to get up and bark.

“We're looking for Nauteus,” Polycaste says.

The old man carefully looks us over, like he's trying to memorize our appearance, then says, “He's sick.”

“Where will we find him?”

“Up by the stronghold, next to the cistern, but I told you, he's sick. Everyone's sick.”

As we ride away, he shouts something after us. It sounds like “Watch out for . . .”

“What did he say?”

Polycaste shrugs. She leads the way along narrow streets, past houses that mostly look abandoned. There's an open space that might once have been a market square, and a taller building, its roof recently patched, that could have been a temple. Apart from two mules tied up outside a house, there's no sign of life. The town is nothing like the bustling little villages in Nestor's world.

Polycaste pauses in the square. To the right, a track leads down to the beach. To the left, another climbs upward toward a ruined tower. She guides her mule toward the tower, and almost immediately the road widens around a circular stone structure whose walls are choked with weeds. There's a cottage next to it with fishing nets hanging from the eaves. A bench stands outside the door, but the shutters are closed. Polycaste
frowns, then clambers down from her mule to knock at the shutters.

A woman's voice answers. “Who is it?”

“I'm looking for Nauteus. Nestor sent me.”

“He's sick.”

“Is this his house?”

The door opens and the woman appears. She's gaunt and stooped, not old, but so bowed by work that she looks much older.

“I'm Polycaste, Nestor's daughter. My father told me to find Nauteus. He said he would guide us through the mountains to Sparta.”

“Nauteus is sick,” the woman says. Her eyes flicker suspiciously over us from a face burned almost black by wind and sun. “He was vomiting all night. I offered a jar of oil at the temple, but he's no better.”

There's something imperious in Polycaste's expression. “He
has
to get better,” she says. “He has to take us to Sparta.”

“He isn't taking anyone anywhere. The way he is now, he won't see another night. Then where will I be? No man to look after me, no one to feed my children, no one to bring us food . . .” Her voice is starting to take on the whining, chanting tone of professional beggars.

I swing myself off my mule and pull a loaf from the sack on my saddlebag. “Here's some bread for him.” The woman's lament stops abruptly. She eyes the bread greedily, but I don't let her take it—not yet. “Is there anyone else who can guide us?”

The woman shakes her head. “Everyone's sick. There's no luck in this town. The fish went away, the trees died, the animals died . . .” She's starting the beggar's drone again. Her black eyes don't leave the little loaf of bread. “People say some god hates us, maybe Poseidon. We gave him too poor a sacrifice one year and he's hated us ever since . . .”

“Do you know the road to Sparta?”

The woman falls silent, still staring at the bread. “There's only one road,” she says at last. “Over the mountains. There are tracks in the forest, but only one road.”

“Where can we stay the night?”

“Not here. If you have any sense, you'll go back to Pylos. Take the young lady home to her father.”

“I can look after myself,” Polycaste says.

The woman gives a short laugh. “I wouldn't spend the night here. It's dangerous. You'll get the sickness.”

“Is there a tavern?”

“The people in the tavern are bad.”

“An empty house?”

“Not here.”

Polycaste says, “My father will be angry when he hears you turned us away.”

The woman looks at her with a sour expression and clicks her tongue. I let her take the loaf of bread, climb back onto my mule, and turn its head away. I can hear the hooves of Polycaste's mule behind me. It's a moment before she catches up.

“Why did you give her the bread?”

“She needed it.”

“She should have helped us.”

I don't want to argue about that. “Do you know the way to Sparta?”

“She said there's only one road.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“I'm not afraid if that's what you mean,” Polycaste snaps.

“I meant, is it sensible for us to go without a guide?”

“Of course we'll go!” She stops her mule, so I have to stop as well. “My father sent us to Sparta, so that's what we'll do! I'm not going home because we're scared!”

I force myself to stay calm, to sound reasonable. I know how to deal with angry people. “All I meant is, your father wouldn't
want us to go without a guide and no one to guard us. If it's too dangerous . . .”

“Who cares what my father thinks? We set out for Sparta, so that's where we'll go. What's wrong with you? You can't fight, you turn back at the first sign of trouble . . . anyone would think you're a coward.”

I don't answer. Maybe I am. I look at her angry, flushed face and feel tears prick the backs of my eyes.

“Don't you want to find your father?” she says.

“Of course I do.”

“Then we go to Sparta.” And she turns her mule away from the town, toward Sparta.

We spend the night in a ruined farmhouse just outside the town, surrounded by vineyards that are already being reclaimed by the forest. The mountain looms above us. It seems like the farmers left in a hurry. A child's robe, bleached white by the sun, still flutters on a washing line. The track runs past the front door, plunging beyond it into a gorge from which we can hear the sound of running water. I gather sticks and make a fire. We eat staling bread and strips of dried fish, but don't talk much. In the morning we wash in the stream, then ride on up the track, which climbs a narrow ledge along one side of the gorge, with pine trees falling steeply away to our left. When we look back, we can see, framed by the hills' cleft, the sapphire blue of the sea and beyond it, blurred by morning haze, the shore of Nestor's territory. I can even make out the little fishing village where we spent the first night.

“Come on.”

Reddish cliffs rise above us on either side. The track's too narrow to ride side by side. It widens only when it leaves the gorge and turns into thick forests of oak and chestnut. From there we can see ridge after ridge of trees ahead of us, cut by gorges and rising to peaks of bare rock that gleam white in the
morning sunshine. The track's easy enough to follow, marked by deep wheel ruts through the undergrowth. Riding behind, I watch Polycaste sway easily to the motion of her mule. Her hair is tied up in a black ribbon, and her quiver of arrows hides a darkening patch of sweat on her back. I'm scared of her, I realize. Scared of her composure, her beauty and her anger. Scared that she seems to know so much more than I do, to feel so much surer of herself.

I'm watching her so intently I don't even see the men coming.

They surge up from behind rocks above the path, eight or nine of them—it all happens so quickly I don't have time to count. They're wearing the remnants of armor and clutching short swords and spears. One grabs the bridle of my mule, another tears the sword off my saddlebag. I feel my leg pulled, and suddenly I'm pitching sideways off my mule. A knee lands heavily on my chest. A short, dark man with desperate black eyes is pinning me down, while hands grab at the locket around my throat.

“Stop!”

It's Polycaste. She's moved faster than me, and her commanding, flat voice freezes the little clearing where the ambush has taken place.

Somehow Polycaste has dismounted and unslung her bow. Somehow she's twisted an arrow out of the quiver at her back. And the arrow is pointing right at the throat of the outlaws' leader.

I know he's the leader because everyone else is looking at him for orders. He's taller than the others, with a brown, unkempt beard and a scrap of red cloth tied jauntily around his neck. His hands are half raised—he's dropped his sword.

“A girl,” he says. His expression is half-wary, half-amused, like part of him wants to laugh at her and the other part is thinking,
That's a real arrow
.

The tip of the arrow doesn't waver. It's no more than an arm's length from his throat. One move and he's dead before he can reach her.

Polycaste says, “Let him go.”

The man kneeling on my chest looks to the leader, who nods, then he slowly stands up. I get to my feet. The bandits are scattered about the clearing. One holds the mules. Two others must have been ripping open the contents of the saddlebags when Polycaste's order rang out.

“If anyone moves, he's dead.” Polycaste sounds calm. Her eyes are narrowed, like she's aiming at a target, not a man's throat.