At that moment Helikaon saw several of Kolanos’ crew working their way through the throng, moving ever closer to him. His eyes scanned the crowd, and he picked out Zidantas, Oniacus, and several of the Xanthos’ men, also maneuvering their way toward him while keeping wary eyes on the Mykene.
Odysseus was in full voice now, recounting the adventure with the Cyclops. Sweat gleamed on his face and dripped from his beard. The audience was entranced, the performance—as always—boisterous, energetic, and captivating.
Helikaon looked around. None of the Fat King’s soldiers were close by. The Mykene were apparently unarmed, but one of them was wearing a jerkin of leather that could have concealed a knife. The chances were the Mykene would do nothing. The Fat King was merciless with any who broke his laws. Much of his wealth came from the ships that beached on his bays, and the main reason they chose to stay was the reciprocal guarantee of safety for their crews and cargoes.
Even so it made sense to be cautious. Helikaon eased his way back into the audience, then cut to the left, seeking to circle the crowd and link with Zidantas.
Then he saw the woman.
She was standing just back from the gathering, dressed in a long cloak of green and an embroidered gown. It was difficult by fire and moonlight to see the color of her hair, but it was long, thickly curled, and drawn back from her face. And such a face! She looked like a goddess. Not pretty but awesomely beautiful. Helikaon’s mouth was dry. He could not stop looking at her. She saw him, and he felt the power of her eyes. The look was cool yet strangely challenging. He swallowed hard and stepped toward her. In that moment her expression changed, her eyes flickering beyond him. Helikaon spun around.
The man with the leather jerkin was behind him, a knife in his hand. The assassin darted forward. Swaying aside from the thrusting blade, Helikaon grabbed the attacker’s wrist, pulling him away from the crowd, then stepped in and smashed a head butt to the man’s nose. Stunned, blood pouring from his nostrils, the assassin fell back. Helikaon followed in, butting him again. The assassin’s knees gave way, and he dropped to the sand, the knife slipping from his fingers. Helikaon swept it up, plunging the sharp blade into the man’s throat and then ripping it clear. Blood spurted through the air.
With Odysseus’ tale still captivating the audience, no one in the crowd had seen the brief exchange. The body lay, blood gushing at first and then pumping more slowly as the man died. Rising to his feet, Helikaon looked around for further attackers, but it was Zidantas who emerged from the crowd.
“I am sorry,” he said, looking crestfallen. “I should have been by your side. They played it neatly, though. We were watching the wrong men.”
Helikaon stood silently, looking down at the dead man. The man was young, his hair curly and dark. Somewhere there would be a wife or a lover and parents who had nurtured him. He had played games with other children and had dreamed of a future bright with promise. Now he lay on the sand, his life ended. Helikaon’s thoughts were bleak.
“Are you all right?” Zidantas asked.
Helikaon turned back to where the woman had been standing, but she was gone. He shivered. Then the familiar postbattle head pain began, a throbbing ache emanating from the back of his neck and spreading up over the crown of his head. He realized Ox was looking at him, an expression of concern on his face.
“I am fine, Ox.”
Zidantas looked unconvinced. Oniacus pushed through the crowd to join them.
“The Mykene have returned to their galleys,” he said. Then he saw the dead man and swore. “I am sorry, lord, I should have been here. They fooled us by—”
“I have already explained,” snapped Zidantas. “Still, no harm done. One less Mykene in the world. All in all a good night.”
Thunderous cheering broke out as Odysseus finished his tale. Oniacus swore. “I missed the ending,” he complained.
“So did he,” said Helikaon, pointing to the corpse. “Let us move away.” Tossing the dagger alongside the body, he walked back to the Xanthos campfire. Behind them someone shouted, and a crowd gathered around the corpse. Helikaon picked up a water jug and drank deeply. Then he poured water over his hands, washing the blood clear. In the firelight he saw that more blood had spattered his tunic.
Odysseus wandered over to the fire. He was carrying a linen cloth and wiping sweat from his face. He slumped down alongside Helikaon.
“I am getting too old for these athletic performances,” he said. “I need to have a strong word with those sheepshaggers who held the stall. Damned if they weren’t trying to toss me onto the beach.”
He did look tired. Helikaon threw his arm around the older man’s shoulder. “There will be gloom over the whole world if you ever stop telling your tales.”
“Aye, it was a good audience tonight. I used to tell that story with two Cyclopes. Strange how one works better. More . . . more terrifying and yet, somehow, pathetic.” He leaned in close to Helikaon. “I take it the dead man was one of Kolanos’ crew.”
“Yes.”
“Never liked Kolanos. Was at a feast with him one time. Never heard him fart at all. Can’t trust a man who doesn’t fart at a feast.” Helikaon laughed aloud. “Don’t treat him lightly, though, lad,” Odysseus continued. “He is a man of great malice. Back in Mykene he is known as the breaker of spirits.”
“I will be wary, my friend. Tell me, while you were performing, did you happen to see a tall woman in a green cloak? Looked like a goddess?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Standing off to my right. Why? Did she rob you?”
“I think she did. She stole my wits.”
Odysseus leaned forward, took the water jug, and drank deeply. Then he laid it down and belched loudly. “Men should always be careful when choosing women. Or we should follow the Gypptos and have a score or two. Then one or two bad ones could pass unnoticed.”
“I think Penelope would be interested to hear you voice that opinion.”
Odysseus chuckled. “Aye, she would. She’d cuff me around the head. But then I was lucky, lad. There is no woman on this green earth better than my Penelope. I couldn’t imagine sharing my life with anyone else. You might find that with Kreusa.”
Helikaon looked at his friend. “Not you, too? Is there no one who hasn’t heard about Priam’s matchmaking?”
“I heard that you refused her and that Priam is none too happy with you, lad.”
“His unhappiness concerns me not at all. And as for Kreusa . . . I recall you struggling to find something pleasant to say about her. What was it in the end? Ah, yes: ‘She has a nice speaking voice.’ ”
“Well, she does,” Odysseus said with a wide smile. “She is also wonderful to look upon. Dazzling, in fact. And she’s not weak. However, I take your point. Not a woman I’d risk a storm to sail home to. Ah, well, you should marry her, then build yourself a few more palaces around the Great Green and set convivial wives in each of them. Gyppto women are said to be the best. You could build a great palace. Labor is cheap. You buy slaves by the hundred, I’m told.”
Helikaon shook his head. “I want no more palaces, Odysseus.” He rubbed at his eyes as the headache worsened.
“A shame Phaedra wasn’t a king’s daughter,” continued Odysseus. “Now, there’s a woman to gladden any man’s heart.”
“She has many virtues.”
“But you are not in love with her?”
Helikaon shrugged. “I am not truly sure what that means, my friend. How does one tell?”
Odysseus draped the towel over his shoulders and stretched his back. “You remember practicing with wooden swords? All the moves, the blocks, the counters, getting your footwork right, learning how to be in balance always?”
“Of course. You were a hard master.”
“And you recall the first time you went into a real fight, with blood being shed and the fear of death in the air?”
“I do.”
“The moves are the same, but the difference is wider than the Great Green. Lo
ve is like that, Helikaon. You can spend time with a whore and laugh and know great pleasure. But when love strikes—ah, the difference is awesome. You will find more joy in the touch of a hand or the sight of a smile than you could ever experience in a hundred nights of passion with anyone else. The sky will be more blue, the sun more bright. Ah, I am missing my Penelope tonight.”
“The season is almost over, and you’ll be home for the winter.”
“Aye, I am looking forward to that.” Lifting a water jug, Odysseus drank deeply.
“Diomedes asked to be remembered to you,” said Helikaon. “He is hoping you will let him sail with you when he is older.”
Odysseus chuckled. “He’s a fine, brave little lad. How old is he now?”
“Twelve soon—and not so little. He will be a fine king one day if the gods will it. I feared he might be like my father, cold and unfeeling. Thankfully, he has his mother’s spirit.”
“You surprised me that day, Helikaon,” said Odysseus. “But it was a good surprise and one that did you credit.”
Before Helikaon could respond several soldiers in conical helmets and bronze breastplates approached the fire. The first bowed low. “My lord Helikaon, the king requests you to join him.”
Helikaon rose. “Tell him it is an honor to be invited. I will be there as soon as I have returned to my ship and donned garments suitable for a king’s palace.”
The soldiers bowed again and departed. Odysseus pushed himself to his feet. “Take Argurios and his companion with you,” he said. “I am sure they would wish to meet the king.”
“I do not feel like the company of Mykene, Odysseus.”
“Then do it for your old mentor.”
Helikaon sighed. “For you I would walk into Hades. Very well. I shall spend the evening being bored by them. But do something for me, would you?”
“Of course, lad.”
“See if you can find that goddess. I would like to meet her.”
“She’s probably a Lykian whore who’ll give you the pox.”
“Find her anyway. I should be back before dawn.”
“Good. I shall enjoy standing in line to speak to her as she ruts with my sailors.”
IX
ANDROMACHE’S PROPHECY
I
Odysseus watched Helikaon walk back to the Xanthos. The giant Zidantas went with him, keeping a wary eye out for more Mykene assassins. Helikaon grasped a trailing rope and drew himself up onto the ship.
There will be more violence tonight, Odysseus thought.
The idea that Helikaon might be killed caused him to shiver. He had come to love the boy during his two years on the Penelope. The first few weeks had been difficult. Odysseus had no moral qualms about killing for profit. He had in his time been a raider and a plunderer. But the thought of murdering the young prince was abhorrent to him. Instead he had watched the boy with an increasingly paternal eye, reveling in the lad’s newfound freedom and feeling pride as the youngster steadily overcame his fear. Day by day he had stared it down: climbing the mast in high winds to help draw up the sail, his face gray, his terror palpable; standing defiantly, sword in hand, as the pirate ship closed and the raiders leapt over the side, screaming their battle cries. Then hurling himself into the fray when every instinct screamed at him to run below and hide. Most of all, though, it was the rowing that won the hearts of the crew. The skin of Helikaon’s hands was soft, and whenever he took his turn at the oars, his palms would bleed. He never complained, merely bound the torn flesh and rowed on. Odysseus had convinced himself that the boy’s father would put aside all thoughts of murder once he saw the fine young man he was becoming.
Until the day the assassin Karpophorus took passage on the Penelope.
Now there were more assassins waiting. Odysseus gazed again at the high cliff road. Should he have been more direct with his warning? Should he have mentioned the blood price Agamemnon had placed on Helikaon’s head?
The answer was no. Odysseus was a man without enemies, and that was rare in these harsh and bloody times. He never openly took sides, remaining neutral and therefore welcome in any port. It was not always easy. When Alektruon had told him he was hunting down the Golden One, Odysseus had been sorely tempted to send a warning. Yet he had not. Happily, it had all turned out well. Alektruon was dead, which was no loss to the world, and Odysseus had won a splendid blue cloak at his funeral games, outshooting Meriones with the bow. But now Helikaon dead was worth twice a man’s weight in gold. There were kings who would sell him out for less than that.
After a while he saw Helikaon climbing down from the great ship. He was wearing a dark blue knee-length tunic, and a short sword was scabbarded at his waist. Zidantas was carrying an enormous club. Odysseus smiled. Ah, he understood, he thought with relief. Helikaon and Zidantas moved off toward where Argurios and Glaukos were sitting by the Xanthos fire. Odysseus watched as the two Mykene rose and accompanied Helikaon. Both were wearing their armor, swords sheathed at their sides.
A young man with long golden hair moved across Odysseus’ line of vision. A pretty woman was holding his hand and smiling up at him. Suddenly he swept his arm around the girl’s waist and drew her to him. She laughed and tilted her head back, accepting his kiss. Odysseus smiled.
As a child he had dreamed of being handsome and graceful like that boy, with the kind of looks men envied and women grew giddy to gaze upon. Instead he was stout and stocky, with too much body hair. It now grew in reddish tufts even on his shoulders.
No, the gods in their infinite wisdom had decided Odysseus would be ugly. There must have been great planning involved in the scheme, he decided, for they had accomplished their task with genius. His arms were too long, his hands gnarled, his legs as bandy as a Thessalian pony rider’s. Even his teeth were crooked. And Penelope had laughingly pointed out once that one of his ears was bigger than the other. Having created such a mismatch, at least one of the gods had taken pity on him, for he had been blessed with a gift for storytelling. He could spin a tale of dazzling complexity and read an audience as well as, if not better than, he could perceive the subtle shifting of the trade winds. Wherever he beached his ship crowds would gather and sit around waiting for the moment when he deigned to perform. Sometimes he would tell them he was tired or claim that they knew all his tales now anyway. Then they would clamor and beg. At last he would sigh, and the performance would begin.
There was a magic to the stories. Odysseus was aware of it, though why the enchantment worked was beyond his understanding. They were fictions, yet they led to truths. His second in command, Bias, had strutted like a peacock after Odysseus had told a crowd that he had hurled the javelin that broke the wing of a demon pursuing their ship. After that Bias spent much of his spare time on land practicing with the javelin. He became so proficient that he won a slave woman in the funeral games held for Alektruon.
The previous summer, when the Penelope had been attacked by pirates, the crew had fought like heroes in an effort to live up to the stories Odysseus told of them. After the victory they had gathered around him, bragging of their courage, anxious that he should include this latest adventure in his next performance.
But the magic of what Odysseus called the “golden lie” had worked best with Helikaon. He had joined the Penelope’s crew as a frightened youth. The men, however, reacted to him as the young hero who had dived from a cliff to rescue their leader. They loved him and expected great deeds from him. He in turn supplied those deeds, living up to their expectations. The great fiction became the great truth. The lie of courage became the reality of heroism. Helikaon the ship’s mascot became Helikaon the adventurer. The frightened boy became the fearless man.
Odysseus lay back on the sand, staring up at the stars. The gifts he received for storytelling had begun to exceed the amount he earned from trading on the Great Green. Last year, at the court of Agamemnon, in the Lion’s Hall, he had spun a great epic tale of a mysterious island ruled by a witch queen who had turned his men into
pigs. He had made that story last throughout a full evening, and not one listener had left the hall. Afterward Agamemnon had given him two golden cups inset with emeralds and rubies. The same night Agamemnon had stabbed to death a drunken Mykene nobleman who doubted him.
How curious, he thought, that a man who told huge lies would be paid in gold and gems while another who offered the truth would receive a dagger through his eye.
After a performance he was always unable to sleep despite the heavy weariness that sat upon him like a bear. He rolled to his side, then sat up. Eventually he walked down to the water’s edge and squatted down to sculpt a face in the wet sand. As always he tried to capture the beauty of his wife, Penelope. As always he failed. He used the flat of his dagger to mold the features—the long, straight nose and the full lips—then the point of the blade to create the impression of hair. Suddenly a long black worm pushed up through the sculpture. Odysseus leapt back. The lugworm slithered across the face in the sand, then burrowed deep once more.
Odysseus laughed at himself for being so startled by a harmless sea worm.
Then a story began to form in his mind. A woman with snakes for hair, living on a secret isle, shrouded in mist. The Penelope would have stopped at the isle, seeking fresh water. One of the crew would go missing. The others would hunt for him. They would find only his bones. . . . No! I’ve done that too often, he thought. They would discover . . . He had been turned into a statue. He had gazed on the face of the snake-haired woman, and his flesh had become stone. Odysseus smiled.
He glanced up the steep mountain trail. “Be lucky, boy!” he whispered.
II
When the fight had begun, Andromache had turned swiftly from the violence and walked away through the deserted stalls. Once hidden, she had glanced back to see one man dead and the other standing over him, a bloody knife in his hand. She was shocked, though not as shocked as she might have been had she not seen men die before. Father had a habit of killing criminals personally, having them dragged into the royal courtyard and forced to kneel before him. Then he would try out the various weapons in his armory. The ax was a favorite. Father bragged that he could hew the head from a man in a single stroke. He never had while Andromache was forced to watch. Usually two blows were necessary. As a child she had wondered why the victims never struggled when they were brought forward. Some begged, others wept, but she could recall no one who sought to run.