King of Ithaca (18 page)

Neaera looked down, ashamed. Despite her mistress’s wilful and often petulant nature, she loved her with all her heart and was sorry to have upset her. It was a slave’s privilege to be burdened with a mistress’s deepest worries, so Neaera knew how much Helen despised the idea of becoming the prize of a wealthy prince. For all her beauty and wealth there was still one thing beyond Helen’s grasp: freedom. It was a desire the slave girl understood fully.

‘Do you never wear any clothes when you’re in your room, sister?’

A young woman stood in the doorway eyeing Helen’s nakedness with undisguised amusement. She was tall and lean with pale skin and long, red hair, which swept around her protruding ears to fall down to the middle of her back. She had an attractive face with thin lips and staring eyes, but was dressed all in black, as if in mourning.

Helen smiled knowingly. ‘If my body repels you, Clytaemnestra, you shouldn’t come here unannounced.’

The woman entered anyway and, indicating to Neaera that she should leave, sat down next to her sister. They had not seen each other for over a year, but Clytaemnestra had decided to come to Sparta with Agamemnon and Menelaus to visit her family.

‘I’ve been listening from the doorway, Helen. You should be more careful of who’s eavesdropping when you speak disparagingly about my husband.’

‘I don’t care who hears me,’ Helen replied, sitting up and taking her sister’s hand. ‘I’m speaking the truth, after all. You know Agamemnon thinks of nothing else but power and ruling the whole of Greece.’

‘He will rule Greece,’ Clytaemnestra stated simply. She stroked her sister’s hands affectionately and sighed. ‘He always gets what he wants, as I’ve found to my loss. But he also wants peace. He’s sick of the constant wars – I think they all are – and the only way to achieve that is to unify Greece.’

Helen stood and picked up a piece of clothing from the floor, draping it about her flawless body. The white cloth was so fine that it hid nothing of her nakedness.

‘How convenient that Greece should be unified under Agamemnon, though,’ she insisted.

‘I’m sure he would gladly serve under somebody who he thought was more capable of rule than himself,’ Clytaemnestra added calmly, used to her sister’s outbursts. ‘But like all of his kind, Agamemnon just feels there
is
nobody more capable.’

‘You sound like you agree with him!’ Helen said angrily. She strode over to the window that overlooked the courtyard, where a group of guards stared up at her. Their eyes lingered for a brief but longing moment, then as one they switched their gazes to the ground, unable even to meet each other’s eyes with the vain desires that lay behind them. She turned to look at Clytaemnestra, shaking her head bitterly. ‘How can you even sympathize with what he thinks and what he wants? It was want of you that made him murder your first husband and butcher your baby as you held it against your breast! They were the only living things you’ve ever really loved. How can you stand that monster?’

Clytaemnestra glared at her younger sister. ‘What choice do I have? Agamemnon is the most powerful man in Greece, and I’m just a woman. And what is a woman without a man, Helen? We can’t bear arms or declare ourselves kings. We’ve both seen what happens to wives who lose their husbands and have no sons or married daughters. If they’re young enough they can sell their bodies; otherwise they’re abandoned and forced out of the community to scratch a living in the hills, or to die. A slave is better off than a freeborn woman: at least she has food and a roof over her head.’

‘It wouldn’t matter to me,’ Helen insisted. ‘I would never forgive. Never! And I’m surprised at you, Nestra. You were always the strongest of us all, even the boys. You should have been born male.’

Clytaemnestra laughed and allowed herself to relax. She beckoned her sister over and embraced her tightly, turning her face away to hide her tears. ‘I may endure him, Helen, but I’ve never forgiven him. Agamemnon still thinks I wear black in mourning for my first husband, but he has faded now in my memory, along with all the good things. I wear black because it angers him, and reminds him I’m not his in my heart. Every breath I take fuels my hate for him. My only joy is in knowing that, as his wife, I can deprive him of the love he should otherwise have received from another. He took my love, so I will deny him his. It’s the same when he comes to me at night. I don’t give myself to him, Helen, only my body. Do you understand?’

‘Not really,’ Helen answered, kissing the tears from her sister’s cheeks. ‘I understand the hate, but I don’t comprehend how you can give your body and not yourself

Clytaemnestra held Helen at arm’s length and looked straight into her eyes. ‘When Theseus took you, did you give yourself freely or did you divorce your spirit from the physical act? Either way, you’ll understand what I mean.’

‘Then I can’t understand,’ Helen answered, blushing and avoiding her sister’s eyes. ‘I’m not yet a woman in that sense.’

Clytaemnestra looked at her in disbelief. ‘And all this time I thought we shared the same scars. Oh, dear sister, I pray you will get the husband you deserve, and not be struck by the curse that has destroyed me.’

She wept again. Helen held her close and swore to herself she would never let any man hurt her in such a way.

Eperitus watched Mentor with concern as he ate a bowl of warm porridge and drank fresh water, trying to regain some of his strength before recounting his ordeal. The others were desperate to hear his news, concerned as they were for their families and homes, but Odysseus insisted that the exhausted man’s wounds were dressed and he was fed before being forced to relive the events on Ithaca. Despite his calming voice and forced smiles, though, Odysseus was unable to disguise the anxiety that stiffened his features and set his mouth in a tight line.

Eventually Mentor laid the wooden bowl aside and looked around at his comrades, who sat in a crescent about him and waited silently for him to speak.

‘Ithaca is lost,’ he began, and as he spoke tears filled his eyes. ‘Laertes has been taken captive and Eupeithes has declared himself king.’

Mentor looked up and met Odysseus’s hard eyes. ‘Go on,’ the prince said. ‘Tell us everything you know and don’t spare us the worst of it. Leave nothing unsaid.’

It had rained in Ithaca after Odysseus and his men left her shores. In the afternoon the clouds came and hovered low over the island, their great bellies threatening to crush it into the sea from which it had sprung. They poured down endless torrents of water, blotting out the moon and stars and leaving the town in a stifling darkness.

Mentor had ordered the usual guard of one to be tripled. One of the sentries peered out through a viewing slot in the thick wooden gates, but all he could see was an impenetrable curtain of rain obscuring everything beyond a stone’s throw from the walls.

As he watched a figure came into view, struggling against the lashing rain and the howling wind. ‘Let me in, man,’ he shouted. ‘I have urgent news.’

Recognizing Koronos, the guard hurriedly unbolted the gates and pulled them open. The merchant rushed inside the shelter of the walls and immediately swung the gates shut behind him.

‘Make sure they’re bolted. I was followed here,’ he said, removing his hat and shaking the water from the brim. ‘A force of Taphians has arrived on Ithaca and joined Eupeithes. They’re marching on the palace as we speak.’

Koronos possessed a natural air of authority and the guardsmen were quick to obey as he ordered one of them to wake the king and another to fetch Mentor. The remaining warrior looked out into the rain-filled darkness again.

‘Sir! I can see somebody. No! No, there are a few of them out there.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Koronos answered, pulling his rain-black cloak to one side and feeling along his belt. ‘Tall men with long hair and spears as high as these gates. They’re Taphians, and there are around four score of them.’

The dagger in his hand shone blue in the darkness as he walked towards the stooping guard. The man turned his head in time to see the blade flash before him. A moment later he fell dead at the merchant’s feet, the blood swilling out from the gash in his throat.

Koronos dragged the body away from the gates and slipped the bolts aside. The doors were at once thrust inward by Polytherses, who walked in with confidence and looked quickly about himself. ‘Well done, Koronos. We shall not forget your loyalty.’

A seemingly endless stream of heavily armed men poured through the gates after him. Koronos, who had sold his king in exchange for a promise of money and power, stood aside to let the mercenaries pass.

At that moment one of the guards returned with Mentor at his side. They halted just beyond the threshold of the great hall, hardly able to believe that the gates had fallen and their enemies were already filing into the courtyard. Then they heard a shout and saw Polytherses leading a group of Taphians towards them at a run. Several more of the enemy were pulling bows from their shoulders and fitting arrows.

Shocked into action, Mentor and the guard ducked back inside the palace, slamming the doors shut behind them. Arrows thumped into the great wooden panels as they barred the door against the invaders.

For a short while the two men struggled to catch their breath as they stood in the small anteroom to the great hall. But there was no time to spare: there were other ways of getting into the palace from the courtyard now that the outer walls had been penetrated, and unless they acted at once the building would be overrun.

‘Go to where the militia are billeted and wake them,’ Mentor ordered. ‘Quickly!’

The guard ran across the hall and disappeared through a side-entrance. Moments later, Mentor sprinted across to the far wall of the great hall where a hunting horn had hung for as long as he could remember. Pressing it to his lips, he blew hard and a clear and piercing note thundered out into the still air of the hall, blasting beyond the walls and high ceiling to echo about the whole palace.

He blew again, then tugged the sword from his belt and fled through the side entrance into a corridor that skirted the great hall. He heard voices approaching from around the next corner, whilst behind him something heavy crashed against the palace doors, coughing splinters into the great hall. After two more blows the doors burst inwards and the flames of the hearth flickered with the fresh night air. Figures entered and gathered in the shadows, three or four of them, their foreign voices filled with threat. Taphians.

Mentor turned and ran. Arrows bounced off the walls about him as he cleared the corner, only to find himself faced by a hedge of spears. He stopped short and looked into the confused faces of half a dozen Ithacan guardsmen. They had thrown their armour on in a hurry, but they were armed and ready to fight.

‘Taphians,’ he warned, pointing back down the corridor. ‘They’re inside the palace.’

As he spoke, three of the mercenaries came rushing round the corner and almost impaled themselves on the wall of spears. The guardsmen reacted quickly, spitting the invaders upon their sharpened spear points. All three fell in a groaning mass, their stomachs gushing dark blood onto hands that tried desperately to stem the flow. The victors wasted no time in dispatching their souls to the Underworld.

‘They’ll be coming in through every door and window by now,’ Mentor told the bloodied guards. ‘Our only chance is to get to the upper level and defend Laertes. The stairs are narrow and we’ll be able to hold them until the townsfolk come to our aid.’

‘The king’s gone,’ one of the men announced. ‘He took the other guards and went to alert the militia; he ordered us to stay here and defend the way to the upper levels.’

Suddenly the whole palace erupted with noise. A loud shout from the great hall announced the arrival of more Taphians. From the corridors surrounding them they heard more shouts and the ringing of weapons, whilst on the upper levels there was screaming from the women’s quarters. And now the first party of Taphians from the great hall turned the corner and faced them, their swords at the ready.

Mentor struck quickly, swinging his sword to slice open the neck of their leader. A mist of blood sprayed over the knot of soldiers behind him, who fell back as the body drove a wedge into their tightly packed ranks. A moment later the Ithacan guardsmen rushed into the gap, sinking their spear points into two more of the tall warriors.